The Mystical Object of FATE
by Galaxy Girl
Summary: Ganondorf has escaped from the Sacred Realm and threatens to plunge all of Hyrule in his wicked darkness forever! Will Link be able to stop him? ... Yes. Yes, he will.
1. The Return of Ganondorf!

**The Legend of Zelda: The Mystical Object of Fate**

_(The Most Generic Zelda Fic Ever)_

by Galaxy Girl

A/N: This fic is not meant to make fun of any "generic" Zelda fanfiction specifically… it's to make fun of ALL of them, COLLECTIVELY! I love flames, actually, so send a few my way if you really do feel insulted and like I should be strung up in town square for all to see!

Oh yeah, um… this takes place circa OoT-era Hyrule, with OoT Link at about age 20.

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**CHAPTER ONE: The Return of Ganondorf!**

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It all began, as these things often do, with the return of Ganondorf.

Never mind the fact that Ganondorf, the Gerudo King of Thieves/Evil King of all Badassness was in possession of the Triforce of Power and probably could have escaped the entire time if he so desired. On the other hand, he had been locked away with all the powers of the Six… sorry, Seven Sages and their Badly Thought Out Plan. Throw in a little Master Sword sealant there and it seemed there would be NO way for the Mean Green King Machine to get out of the big white dump in between dimensions.

But he did, and that's all there is to it.

There are many theories as to how Ganondorf managed to escape from the Sacred Realm that day, most of which involved some sort of festering hatred coupled with the obvious power of the Triforce of Power. A few placed the blame on some kind of summoning ceremony performed by the few Gerudo who still remained loyal to him, or perhaps by a daughter he never knew he had. One popular rumor had Ganondorf constructing some kind of elaborate escape mechanism out of a few spare bobby pins, a paper clip, three rubber bands and six inches of twine.

In any case, Ganondorf was out. After crash landing face-first into a large thicket of prickle bushes, he was on his way to Gerudo Valley atop his mighty black stallion that someone had been kind enough to tether to a post outside the Temple of Time and keep fed and watered for the ten years since his owner had been locked away.

"My vengeance will finally be complete!" he laughed maniacally to himself, taking in the cool night air as his shadow flickered against the rocks in the moonlight. "After all this time of waiting and plotting, I will finally be able to destroy Link, Zelda and the Sages and take over the world again! Whereupon I will be able to regain the Triforce and become MASTER OF THE WORLD!"

The stallion neighed in agreement with the sudden thunderclap and lightning flash in an otherwise clear sky.

Ganondorf sneered wickedly. His long, flowing hippie hair and cape waved in the breeze behind him. The sun was rising over Gerudo Valley before him, and he knew waiting there in the fortress was his army, a vast army of scantily clad wild women who revered him as a god and would do anything to serve him or please him. An army that soon would be mobilized and attacking the capitol city of Hyrule. An army that would soon bring that horrifically cocky Princess Zelda to her knees to beg for mercy from him and his demon hoards. An army that would shish-kebab that brat Hero of Time on many, many sharp objects and stick him to Ganondorf's wall like a grotesque pin cushion, thereby creating an effective display of Ganondorf's power as well as a nice conversation piece when guests come over for dinner.

Oh yeah. It was gonna be great. All he needed to do was get there…

Which he soon did. And the King of All Darkness found himself in the presence of the Gerudo's new leader, the exalted Lady Nabooru.

"In the presence of" meaning handcuffed and dragged bleeding into her office, thrown out on the floor in front of her and given the third degree.

"What in Din's name are YOU doing back in Hyrule!" Nabooru was understandably unhappy to see him as she paced back and forth in front of her desk, arms crossed and looking plainly unamused. "That seal was supposed to last a couple of CENTURIES! Not a few years shy of a single DECADE! How in the hell did you escape, Ganondorf?"

"Rumor has it I found six inches of twine," Ganondorf began to explain, before one of the two guards standing beside him kicked him in the shoulder impatiently.

"I ought to turn you over to Princess Zelda immediately!" Nabooru eyed him with disgust, tapping her fingers on her desk. "Knowing her, she'd save us all the trouble of having to deal with you again and execute you straight out." Her fingers crossed her neck in the universal symbol for decapitation.

"Nabooru_, please_. Is that any kind of respect to show to the man who was supposed to be your king? Your god?" Ganondorf batted his big, glamorous golden eyes at her with all the charm of a mongoose.

Nabooru chose only to reply by raising an eyebrow high up on her forehead and cocking her head curiously.

"You're not supposed to make it this difficult! When your fallen king escapes from his Eternal Prison, you're supposed to welcome him back with open arms and a mindlessly obedient attitude! How else am I to put into motion my Plan of Festering Revenge?" Ganondorf was very displeased at how this fanfiction was going so far. Usually, he'd have already been re-crowned, re-worshipped and re-obeyed.

"Welcome to Reality Land, Ganondork," Nabooru snapped "cleverly", placing her hands on her hips and striding out in front of her desk. "Do you honestly think that ANY of us Gerudo still revere you as our king? Are you naïve enough to think that ANY of us would EVER do what you say again?"

"Um… yes?" he guessed meekly.

She strode out in front of the desk and faced him for a good ten seconds before kicking him square in the groin.

"How freakin' stupid do you think I am! You _turned me into an Iron Knuckle._ You _brainwashed the entire Gerudo tribe. You took over the world and killed several thousand people. _Did you ever, for a moment, honestly think that you could waltz into Gerudo Valley and start tossing around orders again without any of us having even the slightest qualms about it? We've spent the last ten years trying to clean up the mess you made with the rest of Hyrule! And you thought we'd throw that all completely away?" Nabooru's tirade ended with the punctuation of her fist smacking into her open palm.

"But it always happens like that!" Ganondorf protested as the two guards holding him loosened their grip on his arms. "Objectionable out-of-characterness aside, you're supposed to gracefully welcome me back into the tribe with only a vague promise that I won't do anything megalomaniacal or evil in nature! Then I pull the wool over your eyes, have you locked away in a dungeon for the rest of your miserable life, and mobilize my Gerudo army to annihilate the rest of Hyrule!"

"I don't know what kind of stuff you've been reading, pal, but there is NO WAY you're going to find ANYBODY here who will even briefly THINK about helping you out," Nabooru huffed with a snarky grin.

The guard to Ganondorf's left raised her hand meekly. "I want to risk your horrible wrath and pledge my allegiance to Lord Ganondorf again!" she spoke up.

"Me too," the guard on his right agreed, dropping his arm and gripping her spear tightly.

Nabooru eyed the two guards in disbelief for several awkward seconds. "You've got to be kidding me. You guys would rather support Ganondorf, The Evil King, than me, Nabooru, the woman who's led you and kept you safe and clothed and fed you and talked you out of a few public executions for all these years? Nabooru, the SAGE OF FREAKIN' SPIRIT?"

"Looks like it," Ganondorf shrugged, standing up and dusting himself off.

"Drat," Nabooru cursed as she was quickly subdued, chained and locked in the Gerudo training ground without much of a fight, despite her nature as perhaps the best Gerudo thief of all time.

Ganondorf's beady yellow eyes were smiling as they eyed his vast army of suddenly obedient scantily-clad wild women. They stood at attention before him, though several were obviously trying not to stare at the Impenetrable Fortress of Darkness he'd whipped up with the Triforce of Power and the remains of the Gerudo Fortress. The Impenetrable Fortress of Darkness was several hundred stories tall, black, spiky and generally architecturally impossible.

"Ladies of Gerudo Nation," he boomed in his best Commanding Voice. "Your lord, the Evil King Ganondorf Dragmire has returned from his brief imprisonment in the Sacred Realm! Now is the time when the Gerudo Nation will once again become strong, dominate the kingdom and exert HORRIBLE revenge on the peoples of Hyrule who DARED to defy me before!"

"YES, SIR!" they screamed in unison.

"The traitor Nabooru is now locked away in the depths of my Evil Dungeon, never to be seen or heard from again! Soon, the rest of the Six Sages, Princess Zelda and that loathsome little Hero of Time will also fall to her fate and there will be no one to stand up to me!"

"YES… SIR!" the reply was less enthusiastic. A few of the younger lieutenants blushed. That loathsome little Hero of Time was actually kind of cute.

"I shall require a tactical meeting with the highest ranks of you in a few minutes to share my evil plot and to catch up with what's been going on while I've been imprisoned!" Ganondorf continued, counting off the plans for the day on his fingers. "Then, I shall require a strict and thorough loyalty cleansing! Nothing personal, but I don't want my Vast and Obedient Army to be thinned out with a bunch of cowards and wishy-washy Hero of Time fangirls!"

Most of the Gerudo blushed. If Ganondorf thinned his army of every single one of the Link fangirls, he'd end up with an army of approximately four: Lady Nabooru (who found Link pretty cute, but honestly "just a friend"), and a trio of traditionalist Gerudo women whose average age figured out to about sixty eight. Ganondorf could hear their raspy hoots, catcalls and wet coughs from the back row of his Vast and Obedient Army at this very moment.

"Now, we really sort of screwed up last time, what with my complete disregard for the Hero of Time up until the moment he snuck up behind me in the very heart of my inner sanctum… and my unwillingness to just blow up the places and people who refused to bow down to me rather than set them up a long, drawn-out and easily preventable death… and my unfortunate habit of imprisoning the Sages in the temples that they would later be awakened into… and my idiotic insistence that all of my demonic hoards come with a clearly marked and fairly obvious weak spot… But I've learned from my mistakes and this time, there is no WAY we will fail!" Ganondorf shouted spiritedly.

The Gerudo, now stripped of all their personalities and personal qualms with the plan let out a wild cheer for their recently re-elected King of Evil. Ganondorf gloated in the roar and laughed maniacally, stirring up another one of those freak thunderstorms.

Yes… this time, his plan was foolproof. FOOLPROOF! There was nothing anybody could do to distract him from his wicked intentions… NOTHING…

Except… one thing.

"I WHAT!" Ganondorf roared in shock a few minutes later, deep within the heart of his Inner Inner Inner Sanctum. He pounded his fist on his desk (it was actually Nabooru's desk… Ganondorf had been admiring the charming wood finish on it the entire time she was interrogating him and didn't have the heart to destroy it) and glared at the Gerudo standing before him.

One of them was the green-clad Aveil, his new most trusted advisor and first mate. She clenched her teeth in a grim little smile and tried her best to calm him down. "It's true, my lord. I'm sorry to have to break it to you so quickly… but we thought it would be best for both of you if we just…"

"YOU WHAT?" he seethed, tightening his fist around a glass paperweight until it shattered.

The second Gerudo was a very pissed-off-looking third lieutenant. She wore lavender clothing and had her arms crossed in the universal "you better look at me and acknowledge my presence and listen to EVERYTHING I have to say, mister, or I've got a Swiss Army Knife set to 'castrate' with your name on it" position. "It wasn't MY fault, Boobear! What am I supposed to do, you suddenly disappear for ten years without so much as a phone call… you never called, you filthy bastard!"

"SHE WHAT?" Ganondorf slammed his forehead into the desk melodramatically, staring in horror at the third Gerudo.

This one was a child, around the age of ten. Her clothes were all black and looked like she had taken to ripping them up around the knees with a pair of scissors. She wore dark makeup and had black streaks in her otherwise blood red hair. Her face was permanently glued in the look that a lot of ten-year-olds wore, a look that said "I'm not actually a teenager yet, but I'm doing my darnedest to get the look and the pissy attitude down before I actually reach my teenage years and realize that only idiots actually prepare themselves to be teenagers", or "I just got back from the mall with my friends and we totally bought sports bras and we're wearing them, even though none of us have any reason to wear a bra at all, but wearing them makes us feel SO COOL we have to get snappy and cop an attitude about basically everything". There was also a hint of "I act all tough and brooding in public because I desperately want to be a goth and appear older than I am, but on a good day you can still catch me in my room brushing my doll's hair and talking to my imaginary friend about how cute that boy at school is".

"It's true, my lord. This girl… is your daughter," Aveil was still smiling grimly.

"Your daughter that you've NEVER EVEN CARED TO SEND A BIRTHDAY CARD TO!" the second Gerudo, whose name was Leela due to the fact that the author was really bad at making up names that sound like they could actually belong in the video game.

The girl eyed her alleged father with disdain, hands shoved moodily in her pockets and iPod blasting the new Evanescence CD in one ear while she listened vaguely with the other.

"It's not possible! How in DIN'S NAME could I have a daughter? I WOULD HAVE KNOWN IF I HAD A DAUGHTER! Is this some kind of ploy to get me to pay you alimony?" Ganondorf accused Leela with an Accusatory Finger.

Leela smacked him across the face a moment later. "MAYBE YOU DON'T REMEMBER, YOU WRETCHED, DISGUSTING PIG-LIKE MONSTER! Ten years ago! You took me to prom, Boobear!"

Ganondorf turned deeply red and clearly did remember. "I most certainly did not! I would remember being called 'Boobear'!"

"YOU DID! You did! My friends dared me to ask you to prom! I caught you after school one day as you were on your way home from negotiating with the King of Hyrule and I asked you to prom and you said yes!" Leela went on viciously. "We went to prom and we had a WONDERFUL time and afterwards-"

"I don't know WHAT you're talking about!" Ganondorf maintained. "I don't even remember you!" In truth, he vaguely remembered a young Gerudo girl named Leela, but that Leela had been a pimply, greasy sprig of a girl with Coke-bottle glasses and an affinity for stamp collecting. Not this gorgeous, voluptuous bombshell of a babe! WOO!

Leela leaned against his desk and glared at him furiously. "And a few months later, I find out that I'm pregnant and I go looking for you... AND YOU SKIPPED TOWN, YOU DEADBEAT! You ABANDONED ME, in the time I needed you most! Not so much as a phone call! A letter! A drunken tirade outside my bedroom window! NOTHING!"

"I took over the world and became the Evil King of all Hyrule with the Triforce of Power before I was sealed away in the Sacred Realm by the Seven Sages and the Hero of Time, Lily…"

"IT'S LEELA!"

"Leela, Leela, SORRY!" Ganondorf corrected himself quickly. "I couldn't have written you a letter if I wanted to!"

"Don't apologize to me! Apologize to my little girl, who's never known her father! She used to toddle up to me and ask, 'Mommy, do I have a daddy? Does he love me?' And I could never give her a straight answer, Boobear!" Leela huffed, glancing sadly at the preteen Gerudo nearby.

Ganondorf took in a deep sigh and bit his lip. The resemblance was pretty clear. That and he was kind of the only male Gerudo this century. It really couldn't have been a case of mistaken identity. He also vaguely did remember wining, dining and having a tryst with little "Leela the Leech" a few months before he began his Evil Kingdom and the starting point for when he was locked away in the Sacred Realm.

Well… he may as well make the best of things.

"All right, all right, she's mine…" Ganondorf admitted finally. "Sorry… I'll… um… what do you want me to do?"

"I want you to be a father to her," Leela crossed her arms and glared at him. "Teach her things. Spend time with her… Bond with her! Let her know that you love her!"

"Okay… I'll do that," Ganondorf muttered.

"Don't tell it to me! Tell it to her!" Leela motioned at her daughter, who was amusing herself by casting small fire spells above her fingers.

Ganondorf glared from his apparent baby momma to his apparent baby, disdain and broken pride blocking up his throat from any kind of helpful words. Clearing his throat and swallowing his pride, he finally spoke up.

"I… er… what's her name?"

"My name is Pandora Lestat Bloodmoon," Ganondorf's daughter said, making the heavy metal symbol with one hand and lowering her head solemnly.

Leela eyed her daughter and rolled her eyes. "Her name is Genna."

"Genna," Ganondorf pronounced, getting used to saying it. "Okay. Well, um… Genna..."

He rose from his seat and kneeled down in front of the girl. She eyed him with complete disgust.

"Genna… I am your father, Lord Ganondorf Dragmire, King of Thieves and soon-to-be the Evil King of all Hyrule. You may address me as 'Father', 'Sir', 'My Lord' and, if you want to get really affectionate, 'Your Majesty'."

Genna raised her eyebrow, clearly unimpressed.

Ganondorf sighed deeply and stood up, turning back to Leela and Aveil. "See, Lily, I just… I'm right in the middle of a new project and I don't have TIME to be spending with a girl right now—"

"IT'S **_LEELA_**!" Leela shrieked, shattering somebody's glass cup about forty stories down the Impenetrable Fortress of Darkness. "AND I WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF RECEIVING A SCHOLARSHIP TO DESERT COLOSSUS UNIVERSITY WHEN I GOT WITH YOU, BOOBEAR! I COULD HAVE GONE TO COLLEGE AND BEEN A REAL SCIENTIST, BOOBEAR, BUT I MADE SACRIFICES FOR YOU AND YOU HAD BETTER DO THE SAME FOR ME OR I'LL _MAKE IT SO IT'S PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOU TO EVER FATHER ANY MORE CHILDREN IRRESPONSIBLY, YOU SON OF A BITCH._"

Aveil stepped away from her quickly. Genna blew a bubble with her cinnamon-flavored bubblegum and rolled her eyes, replacing the other earphone on her iPod as another song came on. "Whatever, Mom…"

Ganondorf winced as thick, miserable tears rolled down Leela's cheek. "Oh, I had the world on a platter and you took it away from me in a moment of passion! I gave everything to you, Boobear! I lost EVERYTHING! All I've had all these years is the daughter we made with our irresponsible and badly-timed love! And now you want to deny her, you want to deny that that love ever existed between us!" She wailed melodramatically, throwing herself to the floor.

"Aw… Leela, it… it isn't like that…" Ganondorf stepped towards her and tried to comfort her by waving his hand in midair like he didn't know what to do with it.

"It IS like that! Don't pretend you ever loved me!"

"That's because I didn't," Ganondorf pointed out under his breath. "I was using you."

"Do you guys mind?" Genna suddenly spoke up darkly, removing an earphone and glaring at the adults. "You're drowning out 'Renegade'."

Suddenly, something cracked inside Ganondorf's cold, cruel heart. Something melted away and he was left with a deep, loving smile on his face.

"'Renegade'? By Styx?" he asked curiously, sidling over towards Genna.

"Yeah. I love Styx. They're my favorite band," she said quietly.

"Mine too. Mine too."

There was a long moment of silence, during which the entire plot of a Father/Daughter bonding movie took place and both Ganondorf and Genna were left with warm, fuzzy feelings deep within them, the fuzzy feelings that would be all but absent from a Father and Daughter who had never met before and were suddenly forced into spending time together. We could attribute it to the fact that Leela had waxed on and on about how great Ganondorf was the entire time Genna was growing up, or that the shared musical love of that 70's band everybody loved to rag on back then but everyone loves now was just too much for the natural awkwardness and tension to stand up against.

This made it possible for the plot of the rest of the fanfic to take place, with Ganondorf and his oddly-close daughter heading out to jointly take over Hyrule the way some fathers and daughters would go out to the Girl Scout square dance and dominate the "Boot-Scootin' Boogie" competition.

"D'awwww. Daddy's Little Girl," he grinned and rumpled Genna's hair. "Genna, darling, would you like to come conquer Hyrule with Daddy? It'd be a really nice way for you to see what Daddy does all day, and for Mommy to leave us alone!"

"Oh YES, Daddy!" Genna shrilled in her most sickly sweet little girl voice.

Ganondorf eyed Leela over his shoulder and waggled his eyebrows at her as though to say "HEY, HEY LOOK AT ME!". He cackled maniacally and the thunder outside lit up the sky through the windows. He took Genna by the shoulder, whooshed his cape over his shoulder and led her to the door. "We're going to have SO much fun, pumpkin!"

"OKEE DAD!" Genna giggled.

Leela's eyes watered and she wiped away a tear as her daughter and baby daddy left together, Ganondorf merrily skipping and humming an old Gerudo ditty about disemboweling people.

Aveil coughed and went to go stab something.

"So I was dabbling in ancient summoning spells a few weeks ago, Daddy, and I thought I'd see if I couldn't try summoning you back out of the Sacred Realm… Mommy always whined about you spending so much time there," Genna was explaining as she rode alongside Ganondorf across the last stretches of rusty brown before the green grass of Hyrule Field. "And where is it we're going, Daddy?"

"To Hyrule Castle," Ganondorf's eyes narrowed and he gritted his teeth into an unsettling smile. "Daddy's got some unfinished business to settle with Princess Zelda and the Sages…"

"What kind of unfinished business?" Genna asked curiously.

"Daddy is going to storm the castle and force the guards into surrender, then defeat the Sages one by one and lock them each away in an unnecessarily complicated deathtrap of a dungeon. Then, Daddy is going to lay a curse of unspeakable evil on the head of the Hero of Time, a curse that will screw up the mechanics of gameplay in some terribly annoying way that will spread out the length of the game much longer than the original 15 hour play-through, possible only if you have a game guide or a reliable FAQ site. And unless everything goes wrong, I will conquer all Hyrule and regain the two missing pieces of the Triforce, thereby making myself immortal and the undisputed ruler of all the world for eternity. That is, of course, unless the Hero of Time manages to thwart me again by traversing the land, gathering ancient weapons of mass power and destruction and using them to defeat my demonic hoards and make his way to my stronghold, where I shall challenge him one-on-one, use some lame-ass technique to kill him and fail, only to be killed myself and locked away until the next time I can be fanwanked back to life by Nintendo."

"Will you buy me those black earrings I saw in the market?"

"Of course, pumpkin."

"Yay!"

Two death-black horses galloped across the field and on their way to Hyrule's destiny, a high-pitched wailing noise preceding them on their way…

"THE JIG IS UP, THE NOOSE IS OUT, THEY FINALLY FOUND MEEE! THE RENEGADE WHO… HAD IT MADE BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH!"

"NEVA MORE TO GO ASTRAY! THIS'LL BE THE END T'DAY OF THE WANTED MAAAAN!"

"This song speaks to my SOUL…"

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**IN THE NEXT CHAPTER OF THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: MYSTICAL OBJECT OF FATE!**

Ganondorf _DOES SOMETHING EVIL_!

Princess Zelda tries to stop him, but _IS PUT OUT OF COMMISSION BECAUSE HER POWERS ONCE AGAIN PROVE TO BE ALL TALK AND NO USE!_

Link is _HAPLESSLY LURED INTO SAVING THE WORLD!_

And Genna _THROWS A HISSY FIT BECAUSE HER DAD WON'T LET HER GO TO JIMMY SPARKMAN'S PARTY ON SATURDAY NIGHT AND HE'S LIKE TOTALLY SO DREAMY!_

Sounds like you've read it all before? **_YOU PROBABLY HAVE!_**


	2. The Capture of Zelda!

**The Mystical Object of Fate  
**(The Most Generic Zelda Fic Ever)

By Galaxy Girl

A/N: I'm amazing I was able to write such a short chapter. I mean… jeez, chapter 24 of H,O was 79 pages long. I shall be aiming for that short every chapter… I'm trying to get better at conciseness. Thanks for all the loving reviews!

What I mean when I say "generic" is that all of these plot points and twists and turns have been seen in virtually every other Zelda fanfic that has ever existed, ever. The only difference is… I'm being horribly sardonic about it.

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**CHAPTER TWO: The Capture of Zelda!

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**

Princess Zelda was a wispy, beautiful, blonde-haired and blue-eyed borderline Mary Sue of a princess who, due to some very unfortunate course of Destiny, was actually the central thing in the universe. Everything in Hyrule revolved around her one way or another. Everything, from the very workings of nature to the daily schedule of Barney the Shrubber in Hyrule Castle Town focused in some way on what condition Zelda was in, what she was up to and whether or not she was currently imprisoned. She was the Seventh Sage, the Princess of Destiny, the Keeper of the Triforce of Wisdom, and had a whole slew of other pretentious-sounding titles that added to her power and importance.

Unlike most princesses, however, Zelda was not the type to sit up in a tower, embroidering a pillowcase, writing dramatic poetry and staring out a window wishing to be free or that someday her prince would come or other such nonsense. She was rarely to be seen trying on her dresses, combing her hair, attending fancy balls, singing falsetto to passing bluebirds or skipping in the meadow accompanied by all the little forest creatures. She did her best to keep an active role in the governing of her kingdom and the development of any dramatic plots that happened to unravel. She attended meetings, made public appearances, prayed at the Temple of Time frequently and often came up with hare-brained ways to keep important Sacred Relics out of the hands of megalomaniacal warrior kings. Occasionally she dressed in drag and went sight-seeing.

This unfortunately led to her being more vulnerable to kidnapping than a blind, deaf, anemic six-year-old with cash bulging out of his or her pockets.

Zelda's current record was 14 successful kidnappings in 17 attempts. One attempt had been thwarted when Zelda's attendant Impa caught wind of Ganondorf's "unexpected" violent coup just in time to race out of Hyrule with Zelda in tow. One attempt had been foiled by Zelda herself as an infant, when she suddenly spit up all over her assailant's face as he was attempting a precarious jump off the castle ramparts. The third attempt was less of a kidnapping than it was Henri the Chef absolutely having enough of the young princess's complaints about his cooking.

Each kidnapping was later thwarted by the Hyrule Castle Guards, Impa, some accident of Zelda herself, or a hapless young lad in green that will be brought up again at a later point in the story.

Nevertheless, the author of this story had never caught on to the fact that despite all her power, importance and pretentious-sounding titles, Zelda was virtually helpless when it came to people trying to kidnap her and use her in evil plots. The author never once thought it logical that knowing this, the people of Hyrule would perhaps assign Zelda a bodyguard staff that consisted of a little bit more than several hundred inept castle guards and one extremely intimidating Sheikah ninja martial arts expert.

Then again, if logic was applied to anything in this fanfic, it probably wouldn't exist.

* * *

On this particular day, Zelda was sitting in the castle's library, reading from a huge stack of books that all focused on the subject of dream interpretation. Her porcelain-perfect face was wrinkled with worry as she turned the pages and scribbled notes in vain on a slip of paper nearby. 

Impa was off in a corner doing whatever it is an attendant usually does. The author was not sure Impa's purpose, exactly, except for knowing pretty much everything about the Triforce and serving as the exposition-dump character when it came time for the quest to happen. There was also uneasiness with portraying Impa's job more realistically for fear that it would tarnish Zelda's characterization as a beautiful, independent, kind-hearted and perfect princess. Realism applied, Zelda probably couldn't bathe or dress herself without Impa there to hold her hand or at least offer coaching tips.

"No, no, no!" Zelda cursed, flipping desperately through the index of a large book entitled **_Creepy Prophetic Dreams and What They Mean_**. "I can't find it anywhere, Impa!"

"Find what, Princess?" Impa asked.

"I can't find the symbol I saw in my dream last night!" Zelda moaned melodramatically. "I've been keeping up with them very well these past few weeks, and last night was the first night I've been unable to interpret it!"

"Perhaps you'd better repeat your dream so the readers know what it was, though you probably already told me," Impa suggested calmly.

"Well, a few nights ago I dreamed that dark clouds were surrounding the land of Hyrule. Suddenly, a beam of green light shot out of the forest and parted the clouds. Obviously, that means that Ganondorf is an evil man and secretly plotting to betray my father so he can get his hands on the Triforce and become a god, only to be thwarted by the Hero of Time, Link, who is currently living in Kokiri Forest and is known for wearing green!" Zelda explained.

"Uh huh," Impa nodded, looking through a stack of books she picked out for herself.

"Two nights ago, I dreamed that the moon was covered by a black shadow and all of Hyrule was plunged into darkness. Suddenly, a green star burst out in the sky and the shadow shriveled away, bathing the land in light once more. Obviously, that is a sign that once again, Ganondorf is an evil creep who is planning to take over Hyrule and steal the Triforce, and Link is going to step in and save us all."

"That makes sense," Impa agreed.

"But last night, I dreamed of an epic battle between Link and Ganondorf portrayed in beautifully rendered, realistic 3D graphics. Suddenly, a burst of light changed everything into a nauseatingly colorful and cute cel-shaded style. It was as though many fanboy voices cried out in terror… and were suddenly silenced," Zelda wrinkled her brow worriedly.

There was a short clatter and Impa dropped her books, crumpling into the corner in horror. "Great Nayru…"

Zelda nodded, wearily brushing a few strands of her cornsilk blonde hair out of her face. "I know… What does it mean, Impa?"

Impa pursed her lips and her fists clenched at her sides. "If I didn't know better… I would say that it was a prophecy that Nintendo was going to utterly pull one over on its fans."

"Do you think it means that Ganondorf is going to take over Hyrule again?" Zelda asked nervously.

"That's impossible!" Impa huffed in typical skeptical-but-later-wrong fashion. "Ganondorf has been sealed away in the Sacred Realm with the powers of the Seven Sages and the Hero of Time. There is no way he'd be able to escape, despite the fact he still possesses the Triforce of Power and could theoretically do anything he wanted to."

Zelda sighed, still unconvinced in her all-knowing heart. "If you say so, Impa… But really, if you think about it there could be many ways for him to escape. What if he was summoned back by the Gerudo, or perhaps by a daughter he never knew he had?"

"The Gerudo are no longer loyal to Ganondorf, and Nabooru would never let them do such a thing," Impa reasoned. "And I doubt Ganondorf has a daughter. Who would sleep with **_that?_**"

Impa would, if this were another fan fiction by this particular author.

* * *

Nabooru hissed in pain as the whip licked at the bare skin on her back, struggling against her chains. Sweat poured from her pretty face as she glared over her shoulder at the other Gerudo currently beating her. 

"Sorry, Lady Nabooru… Lord Ganondorf's orders," the Gerudo torturer said between breaths, winding up the whip again.

"It's nothing personal, really," a second Gerudo commented, wiping her sweat away with a hanky.

"Why in Din's name are you whipping me!" Nabooru snapped viciously to the women she'd known as her friends until it was convenient plot wise for them to change.

"Because! That's what prison guards do!" the first Gerudo argued. "Isn't it?"

"Yeah, you always see them beating up prisoners!" the second one pointed out.

Nabooru rolled her eyes. "No, no, no, no, NO. You can't just beat up the prisoner for no reason! You have to have a reason to do it! You're not INTERROGATING me even! You can't just… beat me up! Now, if I had information that you needed to know, that would be excusable, or if I was being unruly and fighting back, but I'm NOT! I've just been sitting here quietly in the dungeon plotting horrible revenge! You have NO EXCUSE to be whipping me!"

"I…" the first Gerudo drifted off.

"I guess it's more angsty this way?" the second one guessed.

"Maybe we're using this to emphasize that Ganondorf is Bad with a Capital B," the first one shrugged.

"I'm bored out of my mind, too," the second moaned.

Nabooru rolled her eyes and groaned. "Look. I have a deck of cards in my back pants pocket. Let's play some Poker or something if you're THAT bored."

"Okay," the first guard shrugged, and tossed the whip aside.

* * *

Meanwhile, Ganondorf was having some trouble with inept guards of an entirely different sort. 

"So, I'm really gonna need to see some ID, sir," a young Hyrule Castle guard named Charley said meekly, giving a weak salute. It was Officer Charley's third day on the job. It had sounded pretty easy in the handbook—stand at gate, talk to passersby and welcome them to Hyrule Castle Town, provide directions to various town landmarks, stuff like that. He had never been taught what to do when a cackling madman on a black stallion shows up at the castle gates, demands that you allow him in and boasts that within an hour he will be your supreme evil overlord and you will be dust in the palm of his hand, helpless against his magnificent power.

"I don't need to show you ID, boy," Ganondorf groaned, smacking his forehead. "You just… you just let me in, okay? Haven't you ever done this before?"

"Third day on the job, sir," Officer Charley replied nervously.

"You've got a lot to learn, Chucky…"

"Charley."

"Sorry. Charley. Well, you see, Charley… you are a pawn. You are nothing but a placeholder. Your job and your existence have no meaning," Ganondorf explained slowly, in case he needed time to comprehend his words. "Princess Zelda and the Royal Family have hired you because that's just what Royal Families do. They actually don't expect you to DO anything. You're useless. Were the castle or the town ever under any kind of real extreme threat, you would be obliterated within seconds. I have the power to turn you and all your friends and colleagues into a pile of smoldering ashes by snapping my fingers. Your only purpose in life is to serve as a warning to just how desperate the situation is. When the people see you and all your colleagues die in vain, helpless against my power, that's when they know to panic."

"It specifically says in my handbook," Officer Charley pulled out said handbook and consulted the index. "Right here. 'The Hyrule Castle Guard Pledge: To Protect and Serve the People of Hyrule'."

"Nobody actually believes you're going to protect them, Chance," Ganondorf shook his head.

"Charley."

"Sorry. Charley. See, my boy, you are what we in the villain industry call… 'cannon fodder'. You're not even wearing a nametag. You have no chance of surviving. You are horrifically under-trained and wouldn't know what to do with that spear if your life depended on it. In fact, you'd probably be better off if you just left right now. Just pack up all your stuff, take off your badge and go back home to Mum and Dad and Gramma. I'm sure they wouldn't want their boy to die, flinging himself pathetically at the Evil King and being seared to death in a burst of wicked magic."

Officer Charley stared at Ganondorf like his entire world had been shattered around him. He let out a miniscule whimper.

"There, there, my boy, I know it's hard," Ganondorf leaned down off his stallion and gave Charley a friendly pat on the shoulder. "But it's for the best that somebody tells you all these things before you get yourself killed."

"B-but… but what about my partner?" Officer Charley asked quietly. "Sh-should I tell him too?"

"Oh yes. Tell him, soon as possible. Tell all your friends. I don't want to mow them down unnecessarily in my pursuit of power," Ganondorf reasoned. "Where is the fellow?"

"Hey, Ted!" Officer Charley leaned over and yelled at his partner, a taller, less-scrawny gate guard on the other side of the entryway whose name was Corporal Ted. Corporal Ted was currently doing his best to ward off the pre-pubescent advances of Genna Dragmire, who had never before seen a boy whose voice was finished changing.

"And Janie and I are all, 'Oh no he didn't!' and she's all, 'Oh yeah he did!' so we went and we found him by the drinking fountain… and he's all, 'What?' And I'm all, 'I know what you did to Maria and it's like, so not cool, okay?' And he's all, 'What did I do?' and Janie's all, 'If you don't know I ain't gonna tell you, ass!' And it was really funny an' stuff," Genna bubbled, twirling a bit of her hair around a finger and rubbing against Corporal Ted playfully.

Corporal Ted looked extremely uncomfortable. He was thirty and happily married, and currently being hit on by a girl a third of his age.

"You're really hot," Genna giggled, turning a deep red and batting her eyes beneath her clumsily-applied four-Rupee mascara.

"Um," Corporal Ted said eloquently. He placed out a hand to gently deter the young Gerudo girl from him.

Ganondorf was immediately distracted from the disillusioned Officer Charley. "YOU SON OF A BITCH, HOW DARE YOU LAY A HAND ON MY LITTLE GIRL!"

Within seconds, Corporal Ted was a bleeding smear on the ground, clutching at a badly broken nose and writhing as Ganondorf screamed fairly menacing threats at him.

"AND IF I EVER CATCH YOUR SCRAWNY ASS PUTTING THE MOVES ON MY DAUGHTER AGAIN, I'M GONNA MAKE IT SO YOU NEVER, EVER GET THE URGE TO TOUCH A WOMAN AGAIN LEST YOU ASSOCIATE IT WITH PAIN BEYOND THAT YOU'VE EVER KNOWN! I WILL DAMN YOU TO THE DARKEST PITS OF THE FIERY ABYSS OF THE GAP BETWEEN DIMENSIONS IF YOU EVER TOUCH MY PUMPKIN AGAIN, YOU GOT THAT, PUNK!"

Corporal Ted replied in a long, squeaky moan.

"DAAADDY!" Genna groaned, burying her face in her hands. "You are SO EMBARRASSING!"

Meanwhile, Officer Charley was in the middle of an existential crisis and fairly oblivious to the situation as he boxed up the posters and paperweights he'd brought so enthusiastically to his guard post a few days ago. "I… I just thought I was involving myself in a really noble career…"

"I know, I know how it is," Ganondorf turned around soothingly. "I hear there's a lot of joy to be found in teaching."

"Teaching… yeah…" Officer Charley smiled vaguely.

"I thank you for your very easygoing attitude," Ganondorf nodded to Officer Charley as the portcullis leading to the castle rose up, opening his path. "I wish you the best of luck, and you gentlemen have a nice day. Come, Genna."

"NO!"

Ganondorf turned around to find Genna on the ground, cradling Corporal Ted's bleeding face in her lap. "Genna, get away from that loser! Daddy's on a murderous rampage and wants to take over Hyrule ASAP!"

"DADDY, I LOVE HIM!" Genna moaned dramatically, stroking his hair.

Ganondorf raised an eyebrow and sighed. "Genna, sweetheart, you're ten years old. You don't know what love is."

"I LOVE HIM, DADDY! YOU'LL NEVER UNDERSTAND!" Genna burst into tears and stood up, dropping "her lover's" head into the dust and sobbing wildly as she sped off across the castle grounds.

"Genna! AGH! No, Genna, Sweetie-Pumpkin, come back! Daddy didn't mean it!" Ganondorf yelled frantically, dismounting his stallion and handing the reins to Officer Charley. "Here, Dave, hold that for me."

"It's Charley."

"Get a nametag, son, it'll really up your chances of survival," Ganondorf advised him. "GENNA! COME HERE THIS INSTANT! GET BACK HERE OR NO ICE CREAM! GENNA! COME ON, GENNA, COME BACK TO DADDY, DADDY DIDN'T MEAN IT!"

* * *

"Um… I beg your pardon, Princess?" 

Zelda diverted her attention from the stack of books to a sheepish-looking castle guard captain standing in the doorway of the library. "Yes? What is it?"

"I regret to inform you, Princess," the captain said solemnly, "But the castle is under attack."

Impa stepped forward quickly. "Attack? By whom?"

"It appears to be Lord Ganondorf, the Gerudo King of Thieves, your highness," the captain nodded weakly.

Zelda's face lit up in alarm and she stood up. "That can't be! That's impossible! He was sealed away in the Sacred Realm! There's no way it's him!"

"I-It's definitely him, your highness," the captain muttered nervously. "Green skin, flowing red hippie hair, black cape, black stallion…"

"How could he have broken out of the Sacred Realm?" Impa burst out.

"He appeared to be accompanied by a little girl who bore an unmistakable resemblance to him… Perhaps a daughter he never knew he had," the captain went on.

Impa and Zelda eyed each other and shuddered slightly.

"Where is Ganondorf now?" Impa shook off the terrible mental images and took a protective place beside Zelda.

"He's in the main foyer, coming quickly in this direction," the captain said with shame lacing his voice.

"What? How could he have gotten past all the guards so quickly?" Zelda exclaimed worriedly.

"Well, it's the strangest thing. Half the guards outside came to me just a few minutes before it happened and resigned, citing reasons of 'I don't want to die in vain'. The other half appear to have been paid off," the captain said, vexed.

"Impaaaa!" Zelda moaned in terror, scooting closer to her.

"It's all right, Zelda! The captain and I will protect you, no matter what," Impa hissed, taking her knife from the sheath on her back.

"Actually, I've come to resign as well," the captain interrupted.

"What? Resign! NOW? Why!" Zelda couldn't seem to speak more than a word per sentence in her panic.

"I honestly don't think I have a chance of surviving in this career," the captain sighed. "I think I might be cannon-fodder. I mean, I've had more lines than either of you in this paragraph and you don't even know if I have a name."

"Captain, I'm sure you have a name," Zelda drifted off, attempting to console him.

"I do. It's Dennis," the captain moaned.

"Captain Dennis, please! We need you now more than ever!" Impa tried to reason with him. "If you resign now, there'll be no one here to protect the princess except for me and a bunch of pansy castle servants!"

"I've got a girlfriend back in town… her name is Mildred. I love my Mildred," Captain Dennis sobbed. "I don't want to die! We're getting married next week! That's always how it goes, I'm going to die in a horribly depressing way and she'll find out she's pregnant! Then our son will grow up with a great hatred of Ganondorf and become a rival to the REAL hero, always swearing he's going to kill Ganondorf and make him pay and other such nonsense!"

"Captain Dennis," Zelda set a hand on his shoulder.

"Then my son will challenge Ganondorf to a battle one on one and Ganondorf'll take one look at him and curse him to oblivion! Then as he lies on the ground, flesh rotting off and boils bursting up on his eyeballs and other uncomfortable spots, the REAL hero will hold his hand and listen to his last words, which will always be a confession like, 'Oh, oh Link, you are the real hero! I love you! I'm sorry I was so weak!' Then he drops DEAD and just like that my lineage is KAPUT!"

"No, no, I'm… I'm sure you won't DIE, Captain!" Zelda shook her head and gave a weak smile. "I have great healing powers! I'll make sure you don't die!"

"I have no chance. You don't even know what I look like. My physical attributes haven't even been described. I don't know what color my hair is!" Captain Dennis wailed.

"It's auburn," Impa offered helpfully.

"Oh yes, it's auburn, but what CUT!"

"It's very short. You have brown eyes and your eyelids droop a little bit. You like cigars. You drink a lot. You live in town with your rich girlfriend Mildred and she's probably pregnant with your son," Zelda explained.

"You're a dreadful cynic but a very determined castle guard and you may seem like a hard-ass or a jerk at times, but you're actually a good man and everyone who knows you and works with you respects you," Impa added.

Captain Dennis whimpered and moved his weight from foot to foot. "Really?"

"Really. Everyone likes you. The author would be nuts to have you killed!" Zelda assured him.

"Do you really mean it?" Captain Dennis murmured, tearing up a little bit.

"Yes, we really, really mean it," Impa nodded with a motherly sort of comfort.

"Jeez… I… I've been such a fool," Captain Dennis said with a hint of determination. "How could I let you down? Oh, I swore a vow that day that I would Protect and Serve the People of Hyrule… Mildred would never forgive me if I- AAAAAAAGGGGH!"

That was the sound of Captain Dennis being hit by a dreadful curse that immediately encased his body in a sparkling black but transparent evil crystal of darkness. Seconds later, Ganondorf stepped into the room, gently shoving the captain off to one side to clear the doorway.

Zelda and Impa gaped at him in horror as he dusted off his cape. "That was a nasty little curse there… never tried that before!" he said jovially.

"We had just told Captain Dennis there that he wasn't going to die protecting me," Zelda said indignantly, placing her hands on her hips.

"Huh? Oh. Sorry. Well, you're okay. He's not dead. Just encased in an evil, energy-sucking crystal that is adding to my already lethal arsenal of power and sorcery," Ganondorf shrugged. "Now where was I? Oh yeah, Genna! Come here, Daddy has to show you how to properly menace the Royal Family!"

Genna appeared in the doorway a moment later, arms crossed and still looking a bit steamed. "I wanted to curse the guards, Daddy!"

"You'll get your chance, pumpkin… Here! Daddy will let you curse all the servants in the castle! How's that?" Ganondorf offered, nudging her in the elbow. "Good offer, yeah?"

Genna thought on that for a moment and then giggled, jumping up and down. "Okee, Daddy!"

"Wait just a moment though, Daddy's got to threaten the princess now. Ahem. PRINCESS ZELDA!"

"Yeah?" Zelda sighed, crossing her arms in boredom as Impa took a protective stance in front of her.

"After ten long years of being locked away in the Sacred Realm by you and your cursed Sages and Hero of Time, I have escaped! For ten years, I dreamed every night of the thirst I held for your blood and how much I wanted the Triforce stored within your body! My hatred has further warped my black, evil soul and I will at last take my revenge on you! My power is stronger and my armies are even more Vast and Obedient! There is nothing you can do to stop me this time! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!" Ganondorf screamed, thunder and lightning punctuating his sentence.

"TEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEE!" Genna added.

"You'll touch her over my dead body!" Impa cried, wielding her knife and striking a menacing ninja pose.

"Come ON, Lady Impa. Let's just get this over with. You always lay your life on the line for Zelda, and I always end up defeating you and getting her anyway," Ganondorf sighed. "Why don't we just skip it today?"

"Damn you, you filthy pig!" Impa yelled. "Get your wicked ass out of here before I-"

Impa was interrupted as Genna showed some very impressive spell prowess in slamming Impa against the wall with only a wave of her little finger. Impa cried out in pain and fell to the ground unconscious, despite the fact she was supposedly this crazy bad-ass ninja person.

"Don't talk about my daddy that way!" Genna snarled, crossing her arms triumphantly.

"Good girl, sweetie," Ganondorf nodded his approval. "Now then… Princess Zelda! I believe it has once again come down to you and me!"

Zelda winced and eyed Impa on the ground, the only exit to the library that was currently blocked by Ganondorf and a frozen Captain Dennis, and the insanely powerful sorcerer and his also insanely powerful daughter currently menacing her and threatening to take over her kingdom. "Crap."

"Crap indeed. Now… Genna, pumpkin, how shall we curse Princess Zelda this time?" Ganondorf asked charismatically. He had learned a while back that you should always run your "foolproof" evil plans by a young child every so often. If a child could spot flaws in the plan, there was definitely a need for improvement.

"Whaddya mean?" Genna asked curiously.

"Well, there are really two types of curses suitable for a princess—the conscious curse and the unconscious curse. If we curse her consciously, she will be awake and able to comprehend all the horrific crimes we are committing in her kingdom and with her people. If we curse her unconsciously, she will be as though dead, only awakened by some goofy cure like True Love's First Kiss, the Reunification of the Triforce, or the Reawakening of the Sages," Ganondorf explained.

Genna cocked an eyebrow. "Let's blow her up."

Zelda and Ganondorf both glanced at Genna like she was insane. "Blow me up?" Zelda gaped.

"Yeah. You're such a pain in the ass—"

"Watch your language, young lady!" Ganondorf warned her.

"Sorry. You're such a pain in the butt to Daddy… all you ever do is thwart his plans or use your power to form a magical seal or something like that. Why don't we just kill you?" Genna suggested.

"It doesn't work that way, precious," Ganondorf explained soothingly. "You see, Princess Zelda has the Triforce of Wisdom."

"So? Why don't you kill her and then take it from her?"

"No, see… he CAN'T kill me," Zelda shook her head. "That wouldn't be fair. He's allowed to do anything up to and including multiple genocide, evil curses of the damned and the reanimation of demonic hoards. But he's not allowed to kill me."

"Why not? That would solve all his problems at once!" Genna burst out. "He'd have your Triforce, and he'd be rid of you and your powers, and he'd be the King of All Hyrule! And I'd be the NEW Princess of Hyrule!" Her eyes sparkled beneath her black eyeliner. Face it, there is no little girl, however gothic, that does NOT want to be a princess somewhere deep inside herself. "Princess Genna of Hyrule…"

"Genna, darling… I'm afraid you don't understand how it works," Ganondorf bit his lip and shook his head. "I can't kill her. But I can lay a curse of unspeakable evil on her."

Groaning, Genna crossed her arms again. "Whatever."

"Now… what shall it be? Eternal sleep?" Ganondorf suggested, wiggling his fingers in anticipation.

"Nah. Too Sleeping Beauty," Genna shook her head.

"Imprisoning her in a crystal?"

"So we can listen to her whining?"

Ganondorf narrowed his eyes, consulting the very darkest of his evil thoughts. "Trapping her spirit in a stained glass window?"

"Too Bowser," Genna crinkled her nose.

"Oh, I got it," Ganondorf pounding his fist into his open palm. "I saw this in a ballet once. We—"

"_Ballet?_" Zelda spoke up with disdain. "You… see ballets?"

"Don't you?" he replied with confusion.

"No."

"Uncultured brat," Ganondorf rolled his eyes. "Anyway, diddums, how about this? We curse her to transform into a swan until the moonlight touches Lake Hylia!"

Genna thought on that for a minute. "Why a swan?"

Ganondorf pursed his lips. "Yeah. Why a swan?"

"Because a swan is graceful, majestic and beautiful and the animal embodiment of a princess like myself?" Zelda guessed.

"Now why in Din's name would I curse you to transform into an animal of grace, majesty and beauty?" Ganondorf placed his hands on his hips. "I hate you. I want REVENGE on you. Why on EARTH would I turn you into something nice, like a swan? Or a hawk?"

"Or a wolf," Genna pointed out.

"If I'm going to transform you into anything, it's going to be something nasty," Ganondorf reasoned. "Like a dung beetle. Or a flea. Or a plague germ."

"Or a rat!" Genna piped up excitedly.

"Yes, or a festering badger carcass!"

Zelda winced again. "A festering badger carcass?"

"Okay, maybe that's a little disgusting. But I think I've got just the thing," Ganondorf rolled up his sleeves and the room seemed to darken. "Genna, my dear, while I'm busy over here, you curse the rest of the castle and perhaps the town as well, okay?"

"Okee Dad!" she saluted, skipping out into the hallway.

Ganondorf smiled wickedly as snaky trails of black magic coursed out of his body and along his arms, swirling along the ground and surrounding Zelda. She sighed. Another day, another horrible curse. "Are you prepared, Princess?"

"Yeah, yeah," she sighed.

"Are you going to try and fight back with your ultimately useless supposedly all-powerful magic of goodness and light?" Ganondorf asked.

"No. I'll be good," Zelda sighed again.

Ganondorf nodded his approval and began chanting to consummate his most wicked curse ever. "_Ego evenio procul exsisto foras mei inferus induviae_!" The author believed Latin to be a very good language for wicked-sounding curses, but unfortunately had typed "I happen to be without my underwear" with the help of an online translator.

There was a tremendous burst of darkness and Zelda screamed before her voice was silenced.

Moments later, Ganondorf stood over her cursed form and sneered, cackling maniacally. "That's a very good look for you, Princess," he chortled, eyes bright with the satisfaction of an evil deed done.

Genna reappeared in the room a moment later, clapping her hands jubilantly. "Okee Daddy, I've cursed the entire town now."

"Good. With what?"

"I've imprisoned all the people and buildings in dark crystal that is slowly sucking their energy and transmitting it to a crystal I placed at the tallest, darkest tower of the castle, which has coincidentally transformed into another Impenetrable Fortress of Doom!" Genna giggled.

"That's my girl!" Ganondorf blubbered and pulled her into a tight hug.

Zelda made some kind of noise from near the floor.

"Oh yes, I nearly forgot. Now is when I go into great detail the plans for my evil plot to take over Hyrule," Ganondorf turned to her, unaware of Genna reaching into his pocket and going through his wallet.

"Now that Hyrule Castle is mine, Princess, all of the people and things in the castle and the town are encased in dark crystal, crystal that is slowly sapping their power and gathering it in a huge crystal in the tallest, darkest tower of the castle that I will later use as my base of operations! I will gather energy from the castle town until I have enough to cast an even larger spell, a spell strong enough to break open the sealed doors of the Sacred Realm and fill it with my evil magic!"

Zelda quaked in horror as Ganondorf cackled and went on with the strangely complicated bits of his evil plan.

"The Sacred Realm is really the key to my plan, you see," Ganondorf smiled evilly. "Remember how you and the Sages created a vacuum to suck me inside and seal me there for all these years? Well, I already have two of the Sages in my clutches—Impa and Nabooru. Soon, I will capture the rest of them as well! I will imprison the Sages in terribly rehashed versions of the temples from Ocarina of Time and turn them into energy conduits with which I can control the flow of energy to and from the Sacred Realm! When all the Sages are brought together, I will use them to change the Sacred Realm from a vacuum into a GIANT EXPLOSIVE RAY GUN! And I will unleash my evil darkness across ALL of Hyrule, ALL of the planet, and if I really feel ambitious—ALL OF THE UNIVERSE! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!"

"TEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEE!" Genna giggled along.

"And with you in that cursed form, you can do nothing to stop me!" Ganondorf added with a vicious sneer.

"Quack!" said Zelda, who was now a small duck with a Triforce mark on her beak.

"What an embarrassing transformation!" Genna giggled. "It's not majestic or beautiful at all!"

"Oh no, I made sure to curse her so she came in during molting season. Her feathers will be falling out like crazy," Ganondorf grinned. "This is the best evil plan I have ever had! Nobody—NOBODY can stop me!" He burst out into another round of maniacal laughter.

"What about the Hero of Time?" asked Genna suddenly.

Ganondorf nearly choked. "THE HERO OF TIME! OH DAMN, I FORGOT ABOUT HIM!"

"He's soooo dreamy," Genna sighed.

"He is the only one at this point who could possibly ruin my plan! I must make it so that he cannot stop me no matter what!" Ganondorf tightened his fist. "Come, Genna! I must find my Book of Unspeakable Evil!"

"Where is it?" she asked.

"Back in my room at the fortress!"

"I think they have one here. It is a library after all," Genna shrugged.

"… You are a smart child, Genna. You look for the book while I get rid of Princess Ducky and I send for my demonic hoards to take Impa back and imprison her in a temple!" Ganondorf ordered.

"Okee Dad."

* * *

To make a long story a bit shorter, Genna was flipping through the Book of Unspeakable Evil as Ganondorf returned from his errands. 

"Okay. I've released Zelda out into the wild with a bunch of other ducks that are sure to humiliate her with hazing rituals and smart-ass comments about her molting feathers. And I have sent my demonic hoards to take Impa back to Kakariko Village and lock her up deep in the Shadow Temple," he cracked his knuckles and sat down to look through the book.

"Are you sure releasing Zelda was a good idea, Daddy? What if she finds somebody to help her?" asked Genna.

"She's a duck. What's she gonna do, sign language?" Ganondorf huffed.

"And are you sure it was a good idea to lock Impa up in the Shadow Temple, seeing as she's the Sage of Shadow and she probably has greater power while inside that temple?"

"Sweetie, until you've been an evil cackling madman for the better part of your adult life, let Daddy make the decisions, mmkay?"

"Whatever," Genna sighed.

"Now. What sort of SGCI shall we inflict on the Hero of Time?" Ganondorf laced his fingers together and scanned the index page of the Book of Unspeakable Evil.

"What on earth is an SGCI?" asked Genna curiously.

"Glad you asked, my dear. An SGCI is a Sadistic Gameplay-Changing Implement. It is a type of curse that messes up the gameplay for our dear Hero of Time and prevents this game from being exactly like all the other Zelda games," Ganondorf exposited.

"Oh… I don't get it."

"Well, Genna, in the original Zelda game, Link ran around Hyrule and stabbed things until they died, occasionally exploring dungeons. Each game after that had to be a little bit different, or else people would get annoyed. In Ocarina of Time, Link had to travel back and forth between past and future to awaken the Sages and destroy me. In Majora's Mask, Link had a three-day time limit that he had to replay over and over again lest he be smashed into head cheese by a psychopathic moon. In Wind Waker, Link was a chibi, waved around a phallic baton and had to sail a talking boat around a flooded wasteland, kind of like the movie Water World. As you can see, pumpkin, most of the SGCIs also revolve around some type of Mystical Object of Fate, an object that Link must use, retrieve, or otherwise worry about in order to complete the game."

"Oh. I see," Genna nodded.

"So… what sort of horrifically evil Sadistic Gameplay-Changing Implement shall we inflict on the Hero of Time? It has to be crippling and seem nearly impossible, and it has to be really, really silly," Ganondorf flipped through a few pages. "Hmm."

"Why don't we blow him up?" Genna asked.

"I already got into that with you, dear. How about we fill every square inch of Hyrule with worms and leeches so he'll have to step on them as he walks?"

"EWWW!" Genna squealed.

"Okay… how about we transform him into a Deku Scrub?"

"It's been done," Genna shook her head. "Why don't we curse him to play out the game AS THOUGH IT WERE A MUSICAL!"

There was a short moment of silence as Ganondorf shivered deep within his evil core. "Genna, darling… don't say such DREADFUL things. Nobody, not even _I_ would be that cruel and wicked."

"Oh. Okay," she shrugged.

"Oh… Ohhh. I've found a good one!" Ganondorf sneered wickedly. "The Nam'd Curse! Terrible name with an unnecessary apostrophe to try and make it look cool and fantastic, but it really is a deliciously evil curse…"

"What is it, what is it?" Genna leaned over Ganondorf's shoulder and tried to read the description.

There was a short pause and Genna let out a little cry. "Daddy! That's… that's DREADFUL!"

"I think it will do perfectly," Ganondorf smiled the evil smile that only an evil cackling madman could smile. "Find me some chalk, Genna my dear… I'll need to draw a large and complex runic circle and line it with sacrificed chickens."

"Okee Dad," Genna raced off to find some chalk and a few chickens.

"Yes… Yeeeesss… Soon, Link… you will feel the full brunt of my wicked wrath! Let's see you save Hyrule THIS time! BWAAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAAA!"

Thunder and lightning crashed around the very foreboding Impenetrable Fortress of Doom.

* * *

Meanwhile, in a forgotten little corner of the cursed Hyrule Castle Town, standing outside a donut shop and looking very confused was former Hyrule Castle Guard Officer Charley. He was holding a donut and a cup of coffee, cradling a box full of his belongings under one arm, and glancing around in confusion at the crystallized buildings and people with screaming, panicking looks on their faces (the people that is, not the buildings). 

"Something really weird is going on here," Charley said casually to his partner, former Hyrule Castle Guard Corporal Ted.

Ted sported a large bandage on his nose and glanced around as he sipped his coffee, wondering how only he and Charley seemed to have escaped the evil curse. "What do we do now?" he asked suddenly.

"Let's run screaming to Kakariko Village, ranting and raving about the horrible fate of the Castle Town. Nobody will believe us and they'll lock us up and call us mad, and later on the Hero of Time will have to bust us out of jail in order to get the information we know," Charley suggested.

"That sounds like a good idea," Ted nodded, grabbed his own cardboard box of possessions and stood up.

The two of them meandered out of the Castle Town, chatting about the weather.

* * *

IN THE NEXT CHAPTER OF THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: MYSTICAL OBJECT OF FATE! 

Ganondorf subjects Link to AN UNSPEAKABLE CURSE!

Link is INFORMED OF HIS TREACHEROUS TASK!

Zelda ATTEMPTS TO WARN OTHERS OF HER DUCKY PREDICAMENT!

And the Sages REMAIN SKEPTICAL OF THE DANGER THEY'RE IN, DESPITE ALL EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY!

Sounds like you've read it before? YOU PROBABLY HAVE!


	3. The Hero of Time is Summoned!

The Mystical Object of Fate

(The Most Generic Zelda Fic Ever)

By Galaxy Girl

A/N: Perhaps the only thing about this fanfic that will NOT be following the "generic" storyline is my characterization of Link. I have chosen, rather than the "majestic and brave hero" or the "courageous but naïve youth" images, I will be employing the "clueless and hapless dork with a sword" image heretofore seen in Hey, Ocarina. I can't help it. I love that Link.

* * *

CHAPTER THREE: The Hero of Time is Summoned!

* * *

Long ago, Hyrule was a burning wasteland torn into pieces by the ravages of a Great War. Each of the land's races had taken up arms against one another in a bloody free-for-all in the name of honor, glory and who called whose mama ugly at a Royal Family banquet gone bad. The land was plagued with bloodshed, famine and pestilence. Those were dangerous times, times in which innocent civilians were slaughtered by the hundreds, rival armies resorted to dirty, underhanded tactics to assure victory, and times in which it was really, really bad to be a single woman in her mid-thirties trying to balance a family and a career.

One woman found that out the hard way as she attempting to raise her baby boy in the middle of this hubbub. Ever since her husband's tragic death in a freak accident involving a cart of oxen, a confused flock of chickens and an inconvenient flea, the woman known only as "Mrs. X" had earned a reputation for herself among the weary soldiers as a raving lunatic and perhaps the luckiest human being alive. It seemed her goal in life to drag her child through the worst situations and terrain imaginable, presumably in cheesy search of a place where there was no war.

She could usually be seen stumbling and sobbing across Hyrule Field in the midst of raining arrows, zooming cannonballs, the metallic crashing of swords on armor and the sound of men dying in the bitter rain. Some regiments would stop battles entirely when she appeared so they could watch her miraculously dodge all the usual bits of warfare that caused people to die, haplessly making her way to some place she was unsure the location of. Occasionally, she joined the ranks of the unkempt, wild-haired hippies who stood around the battlefields, banging tambourines and tossing flowers and singing songs about love and peace and crimson and clover. Those people always had the best diaper rash lotions.

Eventually, Mrs. X had had enough of the daily grinds of motherhood in the middle of a war zone. It was getting next to impossible to find suitable places to breastfeed in the middle of firefights, and soldiers were quite unsympathetic when the boy burst out crying in the middle of stealth missions and gave away their position. There was also a large arrow lodged firmly in Mrs. X's shoulder and the wound was turning orange. Mrs. X dragged herself to the forbidden depths of the Kokiri Forest, baby in hand, and managed to explain her plight to the forest guardian before dropping dead.

The Great Deku Tree sensed in the boy a great hinting of Destiny. He knew that the boy would someday be very important to Hyrule's future, and he agreed to raise the boy as though he were a Kokiri.

Young Link had a very generic heroic upbringing—living in squalor in a small village, always wondering what lay beyond the borders of his hometown, staring at the sky and boo-hooing in his thirst for adventure. Then one day, the fairy Navi came to him and informed him that he had been chosen by the Great Deku Tree to undertake an important task that would steer the fate of all Hyrule. It would have come as a surprise to most people, except most people had read at least one fairy tale or adventure story in all their lives and knew it was ALWAYS the unassuming small-town kid who was "strangely different" that had everything important happen to them.

Ever since Link was a young boy, he knew that he was different from the other Kokiri. He was the only one of them without a guardian fairy. He was the only one of them stricken with terrible nightmares whenever something bad was about to happen outside the forest. He was the only one to get the living snot beat out of him daily. He was the only one of them who happened to be preordained by fate and chosen as the Hero of Time, got to fall asleep for seven years in an amazing stroke of bad luck, awaken Six Sages, inherit the Triforce of Courage and assist the Sages and Princess Zelda in sealing Ganondorf away in the Sacred Realm for all eternity (or about a decade, as we already know).

And since Link was technically not a Kokiri but a Hylian, he was the only one of them who got to grow up.

There were many good things about being the sole adult in a forest village full of magical fairy children, Link had learned. For one thing, being in an adult body he automatically pulled rank on the others, though they were older than him by several hundred years. His adult body also put a stop to the daily ritual that involved the Kokiri children beating the living snot out of him for fear that he was stronger than them and could give it back tenfold (though it's a shame the Kokiri children never actually tried this on an adult Link; most of them could probably take him anyway). Link was also the only inhabitant of Kokiri Forest who ever got "action" from gorgeous outsider women, though many of them did find it odd he lived in a treehouse in a forest village full of magical fairy children. It gave him a wee bit of an unwanted Neverland vibe.

Link was an optimistic, cheerful and fun-loving fellow, despite a past that largely involved him traveling to distant lands and stabbing little creatures to death, exploring and conquering ancient deathtraps and subjecting himself to all varieties of creepy magical experiments the likes of time-travel and shape-shifting. Though the author realized it was often in fashion for the authors of these sort of fanfics to depict Link as a world-weary, jaded and angsty young man with guilt in his heart and sobby goth poetry carved into his arm, the author was inclined to remember Link's usual wardrobe of a spring green tunic and tights, well-kept blond hair, pointy ears and a festive green hat to top it all off.

The author challenges anybody to try and tack the "Depressed and Brooding Hero" image onto somebody dressed like one of Santa's elves without giggling themselves out of the writing mood. It's kind of like trying to portray the King of Evil as a lovesick, giggly, Queen-loving musical nerd, and **_oh wait. _**

In any case, Link did not see his permanent occupation as World Saver and Hero of Time as any kind of burden, or something that needed to be whined about in a series of haiku. It was just something that had to be done in between mackin' on the ladies and brushing his beautiful, model-like hair. Link figured that women actually adored men whose jobs were interesting like his.

* * *

On this particular day, Link was shaving in the mirror and singing along to an old Kokiri ballad he'd heard somewhere. His well-worn Kokiri boots tapped the melody on the hardwood floor of his tree house loft, a fresh tunic was laid out on the bed behind him, and his chiseled Hero pecs were glistening in the morning sunlight and a fresh coating of deodorant body spray.

It was not what one would call a Morning of Destiny… but then again, it never is.

"EV'RYBODY HAVE FUN TONIGHT!" Link sang exaggeratedly into his razor, whipping off a healthy glob of shaving cream into the sink as he shook his money-maker. "_Ev'rybody Wang Chung tonight!_"

The Master Sword gleamed, freshly-polished in its sheath as it hung on the wall near the stacks and stacks of Link's other Ancient Sacred Relics and Weapons of Great Power and Might. Link's pet fish Hymie Jr. swam around idly in his fishbowl on the table, where a half-finished package of Pop Tarts was rapidly cooling. It would have made a purist fanboy scream to see all the modern amenities the author had callously added to Link's everyday life, but in all reality the author was without a clue as to what Hylian people ate for breakfast or listened to while they shaved. At least the author had avoided the dreaded double-sin of making Link a wrist-slitting whiny wanker _and_ giving him a pet fish.

Link made an odd face to carefully shave the hair lining the side of his chin, and splashed the murky sink water to wash away the rest of the cream on his face and jaw. Setting his razor down on the counter, he patted himself with a towel and grinned into the mirror, producing a tooth sparkle more blinding than even the Arrows of Light.

"EV'RY BODY WANG CHUNG TONIGHT! Oh, _ev'rybody have fun tonight!_"

Link had a very good day planned ahead of him. After he got himself properly gussied up, he was on his way to Hyrule Castle Town to cash in some of his hard-earned Hero-For-Hire Rupees for a massive refill of his stash of bombs and other highly dangerous items. Then, a lunch date with his on-and-off sweetheart Princess Zelda. The afternoon was set aside for a long, scenic rise across Hyrule Field on the back of his trusty horse Epona. And tonight was Barbecue Night here in the forest. Mmm-MMM!

It was not what one would call a Day of Destiny… but then again, it never is.

* * *

In order to understand what happened next, we must take a brief scene change back to what used to be Hyrule Castle but was currently Ganondorf's second Impenetrable Fortress of Doom. There, in the highest room of the tallest tower, a sparkling black crystal in the shape of Justin Timberlake hung from the ceiling, absorbing energy with which Ganondorf could carry out his evil plans in a very Sailor Moon-esque fashion.

On the floor, there was drawn a large and complicated runic circle, around which lay a few rubber chickens sprinkled with packets of ketchup. Upon finding out exactly what "sacrificial chickens" entailed, Genna (who was in the standard preteen "I WILL NEVER EAT MEAT AGAIN!" phase) had absolutely refused to go along with her father's plan until he provided some kind of curse-fodder that didn't involve murdering chickens.

Ganondorf stood at the edge of the circle, holding out his hand and chanting a curse, the wickedness of which had never before been fathomed in the history of all Hyrule. In his other hand rested a copy of the Book of Unspeakable Evil. He recited an incantation from the back page that sounded quite sinister, but due to the author's laziness in finding another Latin phrase to use, happened to be the lyrics to "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" by Iron Butterfly.

Genna sat in a chair on the side of the room, bored out of her mind as she filed her nails and waited for her father to finish up his evil work so he could pay attention to her and she could run by him again the question of her getting Winnie the Pooh tattooed on her nearly-A breasts.

"IN-A-GADDA-DA-VIDA, HO-NEY! DON-TYOU-KNOW-THAT-I'M-LOV-IN'-YOU! DON-TYOU-KNOW-THAT-I'LL-AL-WAYS-BE-TRUE!"

A great spire of evil magic was building in the center of the circle. Purple and black smoke swirled around itself, guided by the occasional waving of Ganondorf's hand and twisting and turning to reflect the commands in the incantation. The runic circle glowed purple, slowly sealing the effects of the curse as it sought out its target, far away in Kokiri Forest…

* * *

… Where Link had poured a few squirts of Studly Man™ After-Shave Lotion into his hands and was rubbing them together in preparation to apply them to his face.

"The words we use are strong! To make reality! But now the music's on! OH BABY! Dance with me, yeah!" he warbled several octaves too high.

* * *

"OH-WON'T-YOU-COME-WITH-ME! AND-A-TAKE-MY-HAND! OH-WON'T-YOU-COME-WITH-ME! AND-A-WALK-THIS-LA-A-A-A-AND! PLEASE-TAKE-MY-HA-A-A-A-AN-AND! IT'S-ALL-RIGHT, HUH! HUH!"

Ganondorf calmly finished the incantation (to the part of the song that went into a thirteen minute instrumental) and his eyes flashed evilly as the spell in the circle began to writhe, turning in and out of itself as it sealed.

Suddenly, there was a tremendous explosion of smoke, sparks and the silhouettes of cackling demons, screaming faces and other such macabre spell-casting imagery. The smoky column of the spell immediately shrank into the floor, spreading out across the room and falling the full eighty stories down and into the earth.

Snaking across the ground, the curse zoomed through the crystallized castle town and out across the field, past a few hapless bunny rabbits, through the trees and log tunnels of the forest and immediately into the second tree house on the right, just as Link smacked his face with a layer of Studly Man™ After-Shave Lotion.

As the curse and the after-shave struck him simultaneously, Link was filled with a shrieking, screaming, exploding feeling of fire erupting all through his body. Every cell lit up with a hot, feverish pain that soon spread to the cells next to it, amplifying the pain a hundredfold. It was as though every inch flesh in his body turned to the inch of flesh next to it and promptly stabbed it with a serrated steak knife, except using the blunt end instead of the sharp one. It was as though ten thousand index cards leapt at him and papercut him all at once, the pain was so great. It was as though every rap metal band in the universe screamed out a unison chord of the f-word all at once, amps turned on high and "singers" having taken the deepest breath of their lives.

Link screamed in girlish agony and stumbled backwards, clutching at his face with an opened-mouth agony that would make Macaulay Culkin rage with jealousy. One of his feet caught an inconvenient fold in the rug and sent him tumbling backwards, flailing wildly as his body hit the table, flipped completely over it and landed face-first on the other side.

As he clumsily cleared the table, Link's weight managed to completely snap one of the legs on the side nearest to his landing point. Seconds later, the table itself collapsed, dumping a huge pile of magazines, the toaster, his clothes for the day and his manicure kit on top of him.

As if that weren't enough, the fishbowl containing Hymie Jr. was soon to follow suit as it slid off the table's surface and collided with Link's head after a short three-foot fall.

There was a long moment of silence as Link lay there, half-conscious, wondering whether or not he might be dead. Slowly, his fingers twitched at the floor, confirming that he was either slightly alive or in his final seconds of croaking. Eventually he was able to reach up and carefully replace Hymie Jr. on the floor next to his head rather than on top of it. He sat up slowly, feeling entirely like something really important had just happened.

Link knew suddenly, from the very depths of his soul, that something had changed. He had changed. He was no longer the same person he was moments ago. This stinging… it was not the feeling of any ordinary after-shave.

Link… was now a Studly Man™ Man.

Whistling as he shook off the pain, Link stood up and carefully pushed all his belongings off to the side with one foot as he pulled his clothing out of the pile and got dressed. He grabbed his weapons, put on his sword sheath and headed out the door.

* * *

It was a glorious morning in Kokiri Forest, Link observed as he stepped out onto his balcony and filled his lungs with the crisp, sparkling forest air. The Kokiri were partaking in their daily activities of standing around, doing backflips for no reason, cutting grass and making vaguely sexual motions nearby large rocks. Shiny things floated through the air inexplicably. All was as it should be.

Link climbed down the ladder in front of his house and headed out into the center of the village, still whistling Wang Chung. Several of the Know-It-All-Brothers were setting up card tables and gas grills for Barbecue Night.

"Good morning, boys," Link yawned and surveyed the work so far. "How go barbecue preparations?"

"Pretty good, pretty good," one of the brothers exposited. "We're getting the hot dogs in about an hour, and we've still got leftover ribs from last time."

"With spicy original sauce?" Link asked hopefully.

"You know it."

"Sweeeeeet!" Link smiled heroically and gazed off into the horizon. "I can't WAIT."

"Jiminy's letting us put out his stereo, too," another of the brothers said as he came up from behind, setting a large boombox on one of the card tables and unwinding an extension cord. "This joint's gonna be rockin' tonight!"

"What CDs are you gonna play?" asked a third brother, placing his hands on his hips.

"I dunno. Best of the 80s, maybe? What's Jiminy got in here right now?"

"Jiminy has the worst taste in music ever," the first brother groaned. "Let's see what it is."

The third brother hit the play button and from the stereo burst the shrill chords of America's Pop Princess, accompanied by a whiny synthesizer and the ever-present hum of her voice changer.

"_WITH A TASTE OF YOUR LIPS I'M ON A RIIIIDE! YOU'RE! TOXIC! I'M! SLIPPIN'! UNDER! TASTE OF A POISON PARADIIIIISE…"_

"Eww, YUCK," the first brother shivered.

"I am NOT listening to that," the second one shook his head.

"We'll have to borrow somebody else's CDs," the third sighed.

The three brothers were taken out of their musical distaste by what was unmistakably the sound of a young man choking to death on his own tongue. They glanced up to see Link, foaming at the mouth, bloodshot eyes rolling back in his head, red-tinged skin taking on a blue hue around his throat and cheeks, and fingers and arms seizing and twitching like he was being electrocuted.

"… Whoa. Dude, are you okay?" the first brother asked nervously, extending a finger to prod Link in the side.

Link collapsed to the ground and seized harder, teeth clenched together and eyes bugging out.

"Turn that crap off!" the second brother said quickly, reaching over and yanking the plug out of the back of the boombox.

The music immediately halted and so did Link's episode. He lay on the ground motionless, gasping for air like a fish out of water as the three brothers gathered around him.

"WH… WHAT… WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME!" Link moaned loudly, clutching at his throat as he sat up.

"Dude, I didn't know you hated Britney Spears THAT much!" the third brother whistled, leaning in close to him.

"I… I don't…" Link stammered, adjusting his hat back on his head. "I don't actually mind her at all. I just… I heard the music and it's like my body lost control…"

"Mysterious…" the brothers said in unison. "_Terribly_ mysterious."

"That was weird," Link sat up, feeling a bit queasy but otherwise none the worse for wear.

"Well, we won't be playing that tonight," the first brother pulled the CD out of the boombox and twirled it around his finger. "You got anything you'd rather us play, Link-"

In a brief explosion of evil runic magic, Brother One had ripped his tunic off in one smooth motion and now stood in skintight red leather bodysuit. His hair flew every which way and disco lights from nowhere flashed across his body as from his lips burst an awful, awful sound…

**"_I'M ADDICTED TO YOU, AND YOU KNOW THAT YOU'RE TOXIIIIC! OH, I LOVE WHAT YOU DO AND YOU KNOW THAT YOU'RE TOXIIIC!"_** Brother One grabbed his crotch and danced like a stripper for a good five seconds before in another flash of dark magic, he reappeared in his normal clothes, unconscious on the ground.

The other two brothers glanced from their own to Link, who had collapsed to the ground vomiting blood and gagging at the first sign of the music.

"Huh. Are you okay, Link-"

**"_ALL YOU PEOPLE CAN'T YOU SEE, CAN'T YOU SEE! HOW YOUR LOVE'S AFFECTING OUR REALITY! EVERY TIME WE'RE DOWN—YOU CAN MAKE IT RIGHT! AND THAAAAT MAAAAAKES YOU LAAAARGEEEER THAN-"_**

The second brother had no choice but to look on in horror as his third brother collapsed in a burst of dark magic, and Link's head began to spin around as his nose bled.

"Hey, Number Two!" one of the twins said curiously as she walked by. "What's wrong with Link-"

**_"SOMETIMES I RUN! SOMETIMES… SOMETIMES I HIDE! SOMETIME'S I'M SCARED! BUT ALL I REALLY WANT IS TO HOLD YOU TIIIIIIIIGHT—"_**

A blood vessel burst in Link's forehead and he lost bladder control.

"Hey, WHOA, what's going on here!" Mido stomped out of his house nearby. "What's going on with Link-"

**_"PAY NO MIND TO WHAT THEY SAY! IN THE JEALOUS GAMES PEOPLE PLAY, AY-AY-AYYYY! OUR LIPS ARE SEAAALED!"_**

Link rolled in the grass, screaming and crying at the top of his lungs and digging through his pockets for a sharp object to stab into his forehead and release the sweet, sweet pain.

"Somebody go get Saria! THERE BE SOME WHACKED-OUT CRAP GOIN' ON!" the second brother shrilled, throwing his hands over his head and running away screaming.

* * *

Saria was the only one of the Kokiri who had never at any time partaken in the daily ass-kickings that Link had grown up subjected to. She was his best friend and wise beyond her ten-year-old appearance. She saw herself as the supportive sister of all the Kokiri and did her best to help them all get along with each other. In particular, though, she cared about Link and his safety, a character trait that many authors confuse with a desire to get into his pants. Conveniently, Saria was also the Sage of the Forest and worked together with the Great Deku Tree to watch over the forest and make sure things ran smoothly. Kind of like a secretary.

Link was laid out on her bed as she placed a cool washcloth on his forehead, her own forehead crinkled with worry for her friend's health and safety. Her Sage powers could already detect some kind of evil magic. It oozed out of every inch of his body. Either Link had used way too much aftershave this morning… or there were dark forces at work here.

"Tell me what happened," Saria said calmly as she turned around. The three Know-It-All-Brothers were sitting on a bench across the room, two of them woozily sipping cups of water and one of them trembling like he'd watched a creepy little girl and some dead animals on a videotape and now had only seven days to live.

"Well, we were setting up for the barbecue, see," the trembling brother spoke up. "We brought out the boombox and we hit play, and Jiminy left his horrid Britney Spears mix in it again, so this song started playing, right?"

"Right," Saria nodded, taking careful notes in her head.

"And we're all like, 'Whoa, gross' and we look over and L- … I mean… HE looks like he's just chugged a bottle of Drain-o. Foaming at the mouth, twitching all over, choking, screaming, sweating… it was awful!"

"Okay." Saria raised an eyebrow.

"And then anytime somebody said his name… they… th-they turned into pop music stars…" the second brother sobbed into his hands and the other two consoled him.

Saria frowned in deep thought and turned to glance across the room at her bedridden friend, breathing deeply but tossing fitfully as he slept off the after-effects of… whatever it was.

"Obviously, something is very wrong here. I think I should tell the other Sages after he wakes up," she exposited to herself, pursing her lips.

* * *

Meanwhile, deep in a dream, Link was visited by a prophecy.

Prophecies have taken on many different forms and meanings throughout history. Some civilizations spent years and years chronicling and carefully recording the movements of the sun, the moon and the stars to create elaborate calendars that could predict the future. In renaissance times, the arts of palm and tarot-card reading developed and spread across the world. Other people turned to tea leaves, crystal balls, pee, entrails, and shrieking soothsayers to tell them what was going on in their lives.

In Hyrule, prophecies most often took on the form of dreams, and usually happened to Princess Zelda. However, it wasn't completely unheard of for even the common man to have a shiny prophecy being appear in your dream and drone on and on about some terrible event in the future, metaphorically of course.

This particular prophecy was named Angelique. She was a tall, stunningly beautiful glowing elf-woman who was in no way based on Galadriel from Lord of the Rings. Angelique's beautiful, ankle-length raven Herbal Essence hair rippled beautifully in the sunlight, despite having been dragged through dirt, twigs, and other forest refuse during her travels. Her skin was well-moisturized and gave off a healthy glow, fine and unmarked as porcelain and white as Liquid Paper. Her lips were red as blood, or rubies, or a first-grader's tongue after you've given them an entire roll of Wild Cherry Lifesavers. Her emerald green eyes shone with all the viridian of a leaf, and contained within them many sparkles and glints that spoke of her vast knowledge of all things. They were greener than the reader's face after hearing that nauseatingly purple description.

However suspicious her looks, though, the author would like to underline multiple times that Angelique was _IN NO WAY, BY ANY MEANS, BASED ON THE AUTHOR_. Nope. Nu-uh. Not even a little bit. Where would you get a stupid idea like that? **_OMG, IF U DONT LIEK IT DONT READ IIIIIT!11! NO FLAMZ PLZ!1!11!111!_**

Angelique gazed at Link distantly as he approached her in his dream, her sparkling white robes wrapping around her in the inexplicable dream wind.

"Who are you?" he shouted.

Angelique replied in an ethereal, italic voice. "_A PROPHECY, HERO OF TIME / COME TO WARN YOU OF GANON'S CRIME." _

Link coughed briefly. "Okay. Um… what is it?"

_"GANONDORF'S ESCAPED FROM THE SACRED REALM / AN EVIL PLOT HE NOW DOES HELM / HE AND HIS DAUGHTER HAVE SPUN A CURSE / THAT WILL MAKE STOPPING HIM MUCH WORSE,"_ Angelique moaned blankly.

"A curse! What kind of curse?" Link gasped in horror.

_"WHOEVER THE HERO OF TIME'S NAME DOES SPEAK / THE CURSE SHALL ENVELOPE AND MAKE THEM WEAK / TO RESIST THE POWER OF THE MUSIC OF POP / THE SOUND OF WHICH SHALL MAKE YOU DROP."_

There was a long moment of silence before Link spoke again. "… Excuse me?" He attempted to clear the earwax from his ear with his pinky finger as he regarded Angelique's extremely vague speech with a raised eyebrow. "Could you repeat that, please?"

_"WHENEVER THE NAME OF LINK IS SPOKE / AS THOUGH THE SPEAKER'S WILL HAS BROKE / THE MUSIC OF DEATH SHALL RISE FROM THEIR THROAT / EVERYONE IN HYRULE IS IN THE SAME BOAT," _Angelique exposited eerily, waving her hands like a new age artist.

Link glanced at his shoes, then back at the mystically glowing self-insertion. "Okay. Sorry, one more time for me there."

_"DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND MY WORDS/ YOU ARE ALL TRAPPED LIKE HELPLESS BIRDS / UNDER THIS CURSE FROM GANONDORF'S HAND / THAT POISONS YOU AND ALL THE LAND!"_ Angelique hissed, her eyes glowing with mystical metaphor power.

"Okay… that's enough!" Link finally snapped, waving his hands. "Look, Lady, I don't know if you're the worst poet in the history of the world or if you're just trying to make the words rhyme so it gives off some kind of mystical image here, but in the process of your god-awful rhyming you are completely bungling the meaning of every sentence. It's like I'm listening to an instructional videotape read by a beatnik poet who's stoned off his ass! I can't understand a word you're saying!"

_"LISTEN TO ME YOU HELPLESS FOOL/ WE JUST LEARNED POETRY AT SCHOOL!" _Angelique snarled viciously, pointing at him with an angry finger. _"I SPEAK THE FATE OF ALL HYRULE/ SO LISTEN UP, AND… UM… UH…" _

"'Don't be cruel'?" Link suggested.

_"YEAH, THAT WORKS!"_ Angelique snapped her fingers and nodded.

"Can you please stop trying to rhyme and just explain to me what's going on?" Link twiddled his fingers hopefully.

_"OH, FINE," _Angelique tossed her head, sending her shampoo model hair flying in all directions. An unearthly white light surrounded her as she burst into a long spree of exposition. _"LISTEN UP. GANONDORF HAS ESCAPED FROM HIS PRISON IN THE SACRED REALM! NOW HE IS IN THE MIDDLE OF A PLOT THAT WILL PLUNGE ALL OF HYRULE IN HIS WICKED DARKNESS FOREVER!" _

"A-**_GAIN_**!" Link groaned.

_"HE'S ALREADY CAPTURED THE CASTLE, DISPOSED OF PRINCESS ZELDA AND PUT INTO MOTION HIS PLAN TO CAPTURE THE SAGES. HE IS PLANNING TO TAKE ALL OF THE SAGES PRISONER AND USE THEM TO CREATE A GIANT RAY GUN TO SHOOT HIS DARK POWER ALL ACROSS THE PLANET AND NOT JUST THE LAND OF HYRULE." _

"Uh huh," Link was taking notes in the Spiral Notebook of Time.

_"HE HAS ALSO CAST A DREADFUL, TERRIBLE CURSE ON YOU. A CURSE SO BAD, IT IS CLASSIFIED AS AN SGCI."_

"Dammit all," Link cursed (rimshot!), kicking the invisible prophetic dream ground. "I HATE those."

_"WITH THE FIRST PART OF HIS CURSE, THE NAM'D CURSE, HE HAS INSTILLED WITHIN YOU A DEEP, HELLISHLY ADVERSE REACTION TO POP MUSIC. YOU MUST HAVE NOTICED WHAT IT DOES TO YOU. EACH TIME YOU HEAR POP MUSIC, YOUR BODY WILL GO HAYWIRE WITH ALL SORTS OF PAINFUL, NASTY REACTIONS LIKE THAT. THEY WILL BECOME MORE SEVERE DEPENDING ON THE ARTIST WHOSE SONG YOU HEAR." _

"Well, that explains a lot," Link shrugged. Being a Hero of Time, Link had learned that you simply could not let things surprise you anymore. Literally anything could happen in this business. Part of being an effective Legendary Hero was pretending that it didn't bother you when you are attacked out of nowhere by a giant mutant something-or-other, even if it's something like a popsicle stick or a hot dog. You also couldn't be surprised when as a result of a curse, you ended up transforming into some kind of inhuman creature or in this case, fell to the ground screaming and choking on your own vomit.

_"BUT THERE IS ANOTHER PART TO THIS DREADFUL, UNSPEAKABLY EVIL CURSE… THE REASON IT IS CALLED THE NAM'D CURSE IS BECAUSE IT AFFECTS YOUR VERY NAME. AS PUNISHMENT, ANYBODY WHO SAYS YOUR NAME WILL BE TEMPORARILY TRANSFORMED INTO A POP SINGER. AS YOU CAN IMAGINE, THAT IS GOING TO BE EXTREMELY HAZARDOUS FOR YOUR HEALTH. WOE AND BEWARE THE NAM'D CURSE, LINK… YOU MUST'NT ALLOW YOURSELF TO BECOME EXPOSED TO POP MUSIC. THE LONGER YOU ARE AROUND THIS FILTHY, VILE POISON, THE MORE IT WILL DARKEN YOUR SOUL AND DEVOUR YOU FROM WITHIN LIKE A MOUSE SEALED IN BOX OF PEANUTS. IF YOU DO NOT JOURNEY TO FIND THE CURE FOR THIS CURSE, OR IF YOU DO NOT DEFEAT GANONDORF AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, I FEAR THAT THE NAM'D CURSE WILL CLAIM YOUR LIFE." _

"OH GREAT AND MIGHTY PROPHECY!" Link sobbed on his knees, clinging to the bottom of her shiny robes. "What must I do to stop this catastrophe! How can I stop Ganondorf this time! How will I ever defeat this curse upon my name? WHAT MUST I DO!"

_"YOU MUST WARN THE SAGES OF THE IMMINENT DANGER THEY ARE IN! IF THEY REMAIN UNAWARE OF GANONDORF'S PLANS, THEY WILL BE VULNERABLE AND HE WILL CAPTURE THEM FASTER THAN A BULLY CAPTURES LUNCH MONEY FROM THAT KID NAMED MELVILLE!"_ Angelique wailed dramatically, trembling in her severe overacting.

Link blinked. "Wow. That doesn't sound all that hard."

_"MEANWHILE, YOU MUST FIND THE WHEREABOUTS OF PRINCESS ZELDA! SHE TOO, HAS BEEN CURSED BY THE EVIL KING, AND YOU MUST FIND HER AND PROTECT HER AND FIND A WAY TO FREE HER FROM HER TERRIBLE-BUT-SLIGHTLY-LESS HORRIFIC-THAN-YOURS CURSE!" _Angelique continued.

"Do you know where she is?" Link queried.

_"YES."_

"Can't you just tell me?"

_"NO."_

"Well," Link mumbled. "Still doesn't sound all that hard. Usually I've got temples and fetch quests to do along with all that generalized 'SAVE ZELDA' stuff."

_"ALSO, YOU MUST FIND THE MYSTICAL OBJECT OF FATE!" _Angelique went on.

"The what?"

_"THE MYSTICAL OBJECT OF FATE. IT IS THE ONLY THING THAT CAN FREE YOU FROM THIS CRUEL CURSE OF GANONDORF'S._"

"Oh. Okay. Still…" Link chewed on the end of his Pencil of Time. This was still a pretty easy mission compared to all the crap he usually had to do. It was usually "Gather the Six Sage Medallions from the Temples Laden with Horrible Danger!" or "Collect Masks to Help You Free the Guardian Giant Gods from where they are Imprisoned in the Temples Laden with Horrible Danger!", or even the dreaded "Find Little Tiny Pieces of the Triforce of , Scattered All Across the Land in Temples Laden with Horrible Danger!". Once again, it involved running around Hyrule and stabbing things with a sword until they were dead, but that was the part of the job Link loved the most.

And to think of it! No bloody…

_"THE MYSTICAL OBJECT OF FATE HAS BEEN BROKEN INTO SIX PIECES AND SCATTERED ACROSS THE LAND, HIDDEN DEEP WITHIN THE TEMPLES…" _

"DAMMIT!" Link snarled, snapping his fingers. "You couldn't have just left it at warning the Sages, could you?"

_"HEY, SORRY… OH. I THINK YOU'RE ABOUT TO WAKE UP. ANYWAY! NOW YOU KNOW OF YOUR DESTINY! YOUR DEEEESTINNYYYYYYY!"_

"Yeah, yeah…" Link sighed, briefly angsting over the horrible things his name now did to people.

_"HERO OF TIME, YOU AND YOU ALONE / CAN MAKE THINGS RIGHT AS A BLUEBERRY SCONE…" _

Short silence. "What did I say about the rhyming?" Link snapped, pointing at her.

_"JUST TRYING IT ON. JEEEZ."_

* * *

Link awoke with a start a few seconds later, tossing the washcloth from his forehead and sweating like a pig. "SAGES!" he burst out.

Saria had been sitting at the end of the bed, and she looked instantly relieved to see him awake. "Oh, thank Farore! Are you all right, L-"

"NOOO!" Link leapt forward and quickly covered Saria's mouth with his hand, shivering at the near-miss. "Y-you can't say it! Don't say my name! It's too horrible!"

Blinking confusedly, Saria continued speaking from beneath the palm of Link's hand. "WHAHGHGHMNGNGHG?"

"I've had a vision, Saria… I have seen a prophecy!" Link leapt to his feet and gestured in the general direction of the wall, and presumably the horizon beyond. "You and the other Sages are in grave danger! All of Hyrule is in grave danger! I am the only one who can stop it!"

"A_gain_?" she expressed very little surprise at this news.

"Yes. Again," Link murmured under his breath, eyes shifting right and left. "Listen to me, Saria… we're all in a lot of trouble! Ganondorf has returned to Hyrule!"

"A_gain_?" this didn't come as much of a shock either.

"Yes! AGAIN!" Link pounded a fist into an open palm. "He is plotting to kidnap you Sages and hook you together in a giant ray gun to fire his evil magic out across the world! He's already gotten Nabooru and Impa, and it's only a matter of time before he comes for the rest of you!"

Saria clasped her hands together Mary-Sueishly and moaned. "Oh no! What are we going to do?"

"Well, my guess is that you Sages will stand around like bumps on a log, offering useless advice and giving me fetch quests to do, while I'll go out and get my ass kicked by every monster from here to Termina and probably die several times in the dark depths of a stinking dungeon," Link shrugged.

"Oh. Sounds good to me," Saria also shrugged. Always good to follow the norm.

"I must get going immediately!" Link said mostly to himself, leaping to his feet and heading out the door.

"But you can't go just yet!" Saria shrieked, tugging on his tunic. "You're not ready!"

He snapped his fingers. "Yes! You're right, Saria! I must go to my house and prepare my stacks and stacks of weapons!"

"No, not that!" Saria wailed, tossing her arms around as though she were not exceptionally smart for her age and more mature than that. "There's **something else** you have to take before you leave!"

"What?" asked Link.

"Something else… Meet me in **our secret place in the Lost Woods**. There's **something** I have to give you before you leave!" Saria whispered.

"What else do I need before I leave?" Link asked curiously.

"Meet me in **our secret place in the Lost Woods.** There's **something** I have to give you before you leave!" Saria whispered again.

"Saria, just tell me."

"Meet me in **our secret place in the Lost Woods.** There's **something **I have to give you before you leave!" Saria whispered again.

Link regarded her with a raised eyebrow. "Oh God. You're speaking game dialogue again."

"Meet me in **our secret place in the Lost Woods.** There's **something **I have to give you before you leave!"

"Can't you just give it to me NOW? Do we really have to go through all this cryptic crap?" Link groaned, smacking himself in the forehead.

"Meet me in **our secret place in the Lost Woods.** There's **something **I have to give you before you leave!" Saria whispered again.

"DAMMIT!" Link kicked the door frame. "Fine! Fine, you just… I'll see you there, okay?"

"HOW MANY BLOODY TIMES DO I HAVE TO REPEAT IT BEFORE YOU _REMEMBER,_ DUMBASS! Meet me in **our secret place in the Lost Woods.** There's **something** I have to give you before you leave!" Saria whispered again.

"Pardon?" Link leaned his head back in the doorway.

"Meet me in **our secret place in the Lost Woods**. There's **something **I have to give you before you leave!" Saria whispered.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the Sacred Realm, Rauru the Sage of Light was floating around aimlessly.

Not that you could really blame him, though. He had so little introduction in Ocarina of Time it was tough for any author to really nail down exactly what the old guy was like, where he actually lived and whether or not the entire course of his life was spent standing there on the yellow seal in the Chamber of the Sages, waiting for Legendary Heroes to accidentally lock themselves in or other such nonsense.

Currently, Rauru was sending out a signal to the other Five Sages, a strong, psychic Sagely signal that would summon them to the Sacred Realm. Say that ten times fast.

But Rauru was a bit disturbed by the fact that he could only seem to reach three of his fellow Sages. The Sages of Shadow and Spirit were not receiving the call, nor answering it.

"Puzzling," he said to nobody in particular, because that's what elderly Sages who live alone in a magical dimension do. "What has happened to Lady Impa and Lady Nabooru to stop them from hearing the beckoning call of the Sacred Realm?"

Unbeknownst to Rauru, Impa and Nabooru were currently indisposed by means of being chained up several million times by the most evil of magic inside their respectful temples, at the very back end, guarded by horrifically demonic creatures and currently dozing in an eternal sleep. That should have been his first guess, however, because it happened so damn often there was just no excuse for continually being ignorant of what was going on.

"I fear that Ganondorf has escaped from the Sacred Realm again," Rauru said obviously. For being a mystical all-knowing Sage who actually LIVED in the Sacred Realm, Rauru was something of a dolt. "Who knows what sort of terrible evil he has unleashed upon our peaceful land of Hyrule? I must contact Princess Zelda immediately!"

With a flutter of a thought, the Sacred Realm turned from a giant floaty white space into a majestic stone hallway that connected with the Temple of Time. Rauru could do that. The Sacred Realm reflected the thoughts of whoever was inside it. When Rauru thought about lions, there were lions. When Rauru thought about obscure Ray Bradbury references, there were obscure Ray Bradbury references.

Of course Ganondorf must have escaped. The Sacred Realm was too quiet for him to still be within it. How could Rauru have missed the sudden disappearance of the constant maniacal laughter, the sudden absence of that chilling feeling of evil, the sudden lack of pornography constantly playing on all walls of the Realm?

Yes… Rauru's King of Evil roommate was definitely back in Hyrule again, a fact that had already been established multiple times to multiple people.

Rauru hurried down the Sacred Realm hallway on his way to the Chamber of Sages, where he could more clearly send out summons to Impa, Nabooru and the seventh Sage, Princess Zelda.

Or at least, he would have, had he not heard a suspicious blubbering noise from behind him.

Rauru slowed to a stop and turned to see the crumpled up form of a little girl in the middle of the hallway, crying and moaning helplessly. "Oh, oh, oh!" she sobbed melodramatically. "I'm lost! Lost forever!"

The elder Sage raised an eyebrow and took a few steps towards her. "What is a child such as yourself doing in the Sacred Realm, little girl?"

"I… I… I…" the girl sobbed, shivering pathetically and giving him puppy eyes that even he couldn't resist.

"Come, now. There's no need to be afraid, child. You must have accidentally wandered in from the Temple of Time, didn't you?" Rauru smiled softly and made a mental note to bitch out the souls of those shoddy Temple contractors. Always cutting corners, always using Generic Brand A when they should have used the real deal, always leaving convenient plot contriving holes in the Sacred Barriers.

"I'm scared, Mister!" the girl shivered again, shaking her head. "Where's my Mummy and Dad? Where are they, Mister?"

"They are back in Hyrule. Come, child. I shall lead you to the exit of the Sacred Realm," Rauru leaned down to the child and held out his hand.

Moments later, he was sprawled across the floor unconscious with a nasty bump on the back of his head where an armored glove had slammed into him.

"Din, that couldn't have been EASIER," Ganondorf snorted, tossing his red hippie hair cockily and crossing his arms. "What a tremendous dolt!"

"You think the Sage of Light would be a little smarter than that," Genna huffed, brushing the Sacred Dust off her black parachute pants. "Great plan, Daddy!"

"Now," Ganondorf lifted the chubby Sage by the back of the collar and noticeably winced from the weight, "What shall we do with him?"

"OOH OOH!" Genna leapt up and down, waving her hands spastically.

"Do you have a plan, Genna my dear?"

"LET'S FLAY HIM AND LET THE RATS EAT HIS SKIN AND PLANT MAGGOTS ALL OVER HIS BARE BODY UNTIL THEY DEVOUR HIM INSIDE AND OUT AND HE BEGS FOR THE SWEET RELEASE OF DEATH AT OUR HANDS WHICH WE CONSTANTLY DENY HIM UNTIL HE GOES MAD AND THEN WE KILL HIM IN THE MOST PAINFUL WAY POSSIBLE!"

Ganondorf blinked. "God, Genna. That's disgusting."

Genna looked very hurt. "D-Daddy, it's this song I have on my iPod…"

"Where in the world could you have gotten such insatiable bloodlust?" Ganondorf twitched. "Must be from your mother's side… No, no, we can't do anything like that to him. I say we chain him up in the Temple of Time, except we expand the basement into a tremendous dungeon level that somebody would have to be totally insane to go inside."

"You never let me have any fun, Daddy!" Genna pouted, crossing her arms and huffing. She turned on her heels and stomped towards the exit of the Sacred Realm, sobbing.

"Oh jeez… Genna, darling, Daddy didn't mean it!" Ganondorf yelled to her as he dragged Rauru out. "Genna! Stop this at once! Cease your endless preteen angst! Daddy will take you out for lunch if you do!"

* * *

Link stood before the Forest Temple, dressed to kill in his favorite green tunic, tights and hat. Strapped to his back was the Legendary Master Sword and the Mirror Shield (Neat Ocarina of Time version, not Creepy Majora's Mask version). Tucked away either in a dimensional portal behind his shield or up his ass was his arsenal of deadly weapons, ranging in size and deadliness from the Hookshot to the Biggoron's Sword, from the Deku Nut to the Megaton Hammer.

Saria was seated on a tree stump just outside the temple, and she stood up as soon as he came into the clearing. "I've been waiting for you, Hero of Time…" she overacted like hell.

"I followed you here. You've been sitting on that tree stump for the last five minutes," Link reminded her.

"… Oh yeah. Anyway! L-" she caught herself just in time. "I mean… Hero of Time! I won't let you just wander off to save the world without proper preparations! Ganondorf's curse upon you is dreadful, to say the least, and we have to take precautions to keep it from devouring your soul from within."

"I never said anything about it devouring my soul from within. That was in my dream. How did you know that?" Link asked curiously.

Saria blinked for a moment. "In any case… I think you ought to change your appearance so that people you know don't accidentally set off your curse."

"Change my appearance?" Link glanced sadly at the tunic and tights ensemble he was so fond of. "But I always fight evil in these clothes! Even when getting me to do so takes an extremely awkward plot contrivance!"

I'm looking at YOU, Wind Waker!

"I know," Saria looked solemn, "But we can't have people calling you by your real name or else you might… die. So I brought a few things I think might help you out."

Link looked on in awe as Saria removed from literally nowhere a large brown cardboard box sealed with shipping tape. She tore open the flaps and smiled at Link.

"I bought this on eBay when I heard about your curse. It should work as a disguise for you, and no one will call your name while you wear it," she said as she handed it to him.

DUN NUH NUH NUUUUUUUH!

**Link got the EXTRANEOUS BELT OF TETSUYA NOMURA!  
This belt is actually made of about eight belts! Wear them and you'll look like the main character from a recent Final Fantasy game! Your appearance will change just enough so that nobody should mistake you for L- oh, sorry.**

Link donned the Extraneous Belt and glanced at Saria again. "Well… how does it look?"

"Oh, that's a good start!" Saria hopped up and down excitedly. "But you have to turn it on for it to work."

"Oh… like this?" Link pressed a convenient switch on the buckle of the largest belt.

Within seconds, Link looked different. Belts criss-crossed his torso at every available spot, making him look like he'd fallen into a closet and managed to struggle free after six weeks of eating mothballs for sustenance. His hair was a bit spikier than normal, and his hat was inexplicably strapped to his shoulder rather than on his head. A sullen glare decorated his face, as did a scar that made him about ten times sexier. A nametag on his chest proudly proclaimed him to be "Smog".

"Why the heck am I wearing my hat on my shoulder?" Link glanced at it with a raised eyebrow.

"It's… edgy, or something. You look great! I'd hardly recognize you if you weren't the only adult in the world who wears a green tunic and tights!" Saria commented, eyeing the unchanged aspects of his wardrobe. "The uneven tight lengths are a nice touch. And 'Smog'. That's a great pseudonym!"

"Can't I be like… 'Cloud', or 'Squall'? Or 'Gale'?" Link whined.

"Nah. I think 'Smog' works pretty well. I'll call you that until your curse is broken!" Saria giggled brainlessly.

"Well, thank you, Saria," Link nodded solemnly. "Was that all?"

"Oh, no. One more thing. I don't trust you out on your own, so I've asked a few of my fairy's friends if they wouldn't mind accompanying you on your journey," Saria said proudly, waving her hands like a Barker Beauty. Four little fairies fluttered down from a nearby tree, standing before him and flapping their wings proudly.

"Do I really need a fairy? I think I'm a bit old for a fairy…"

"Oh, just pick one out. They're very helpful! Isn't it nice to know what it is you're killing?" Saria pressured. "Which one would you like?"

"Well, um… What are they like?"

"Well, Fairy Number One's name is Yuki," Saria motioned to the fairy in question, who spun around gleefully. "She enjoys moonlit walks by the lake, margaritas and Chinese food."

"I'm a fairy!" Yuki said proudly. "Saria is a Kokiri and you are a Hylian!"

Link blinked. "Uh… huh."

"She kind of states the obvious sometimes," Saria admitted, shrugging a bit.

"Look! There is GRASS on the ground!" Yuki gasped in awe.

"But she's really nice! And she knows a lot about monsters and things, just like a fairy is supposed to!"

"The sky is blue!" Yuki buzzed up to Link and stated matter-of-factly. "And your clothes are green! Like GRASS!"

"Next please," he said quickly.

"Okay. Fairy Number Two is named Rika. She likes watching football, beer, and pretzels. She's a guy's dream fairy!"

Rika fluttered there in the air, just staring at them for a few seconds.

"Rika is one of those fairies who knows a lot but doesn't always say it… and she's very fiery," Saria pointed out.

"Oh. So she's a bitch?" Link asked.

"F-CK OFF, F-CKER," Rika said sharply.

"That's not very nice, Rika," Saria scolded. "Why don't you tell Link about the Forest Temple? Y'know, like a test drive?"

"What's there to know?" Rika snarked. "It's a f-cking temple, with a f-cking forest inside. God, you're stupid."

"How about Number Three?" Link stepped away from Rika with a casual grin on his face.

"This is Puki," Saria motioned at the third fairy, who was flying a bit lower than the others.

"Puke-y?"

"No, no, it's pronounced 'POO-KEY'," Saria corrected. "She's a bit moodier than the other two."

"I am a boy," Puki said in a low, dead sort of voice.

"She also constantly swears that she is a boy. But you'll get used to that," Saria shrugged.

"Why won't you people ever listen to me? I am a BOY. I am MALE. I have the Fairy Y chromosome. I am from Fairy Mars. I am a MAN!" Puki sighed heavily, as though he were very tired of explaining it to people. "Just because I'm a fairy doesn't mean I'm a girl!"

"Then why is your name Puki?" Link asked him.

"My mother was very vindictive," Puki sighed.

"Isn't she cute?" Saria giggled.

"I'm going to kill you with a hatchet," Puki said plainly, glancing at her with a tiny look of absolute hatred.

"How about Fairy Number Four?" Link examined the fourth fairy closely.

"That's not a fairy. It's a tennis ball," Saria explained.

"Oh. Does it know about monsters?"

"No. It's a tennis ball. It bounces against things and people hit it with rackets."

"Uh… huh…" Link eyed the tennis ball with a nod. "And does it talk back?"

"No. It's incapable of speech. It's a tennis ball. I actually don't know how it got here with the other fairies," Saria blinked.

"I see. Well… considering all the evidence," Link eyed the three fairies and the tennis ball, "I'm going to have to go with Fairy Number Four."

"The tennis ball?"

"Yep. The tennis ball."

"Smog, you can't take the tennis ball," Saria looked vexed.

"Okay, fine. Puki, you're coming with me, man," Link stuck the tennis ball in his hammerspace backpack as the third, pink fairy came rushing over to him, gently embracing his arm.

"Oh thank you. Thank you," Puki sobbed.

"There, there," Link patted the fairy gently on he shoulder. "Now, we'd best be heading off to save the world!"

"Good luck, L- Smog!" Saria's eyes watered girlishly as she hugged him around the waist. "Please be careful!"

"You be careful too, Saria," Link warned her. "Ganondorf is kidnapping Sages right and left. You've got to watch out for yourself. I'm heading to **Hyrule Castle** to see what's been going on there, and after that I'll head to **Kakariko Village** to warn **Impa**, then **up Death Mountain** to speak to **Darunia**."

"Sounds like the first few hours of gameplay to me!" Saria grinned, hugging him tightly again. "Goodbye, Smog!"

"Goodbye Saria!" Link waved dramatically as he turned and sped off into the inexplicable sunset, Puki close behind.

"Oh, this is gonna be great, Smog," Puki's eyes watered as they ran together. "You know my last charge was a girl? GOD. All she did was whine, whine, whine, 'Puki, I'm not pretty! Tell me I'm pretty, Puki, please!' This is gonna be so cool! We can check out babes together and stuff… it'll rock."

"Are you really a boy?" Link raised his eyebrow.

There was a short moment of silence.

"Puki?"

"YES I'M A BOY OKAY?"

* * *

_Saria… Saria…_

"What?" Saria turned around towards the Forest Temple.

_We have free ice cream._

"FREE ICE CREAM! Oh boy!" Saria quickly climbed the tree out front and hopped down on the temple balcony, pausing just before she entered. "Hey, wait a minute… are you sure you have free ice cream? Or are you just saying that to get me to come inside so that you can kidnap me and strap me into a giant Sage ray gun that'll suck my power dry and spread evil all over the world?"

_Uh… no, of course not. _

"Oh. Good," she nodded astutely before strolling into the temple and disappearing for most of the rest of the story.

* * *

**  
IN THE NEXT CHAPTER OF THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: MYSTICAL OBJECT OF FATE!**

Link finds out that _ONCE AGAIN, HE IS TOO LATE TO STOP ANY DAMAGE FROM BEING DONE!_

Zelda _FEEBLY ATTEMPTS TO HELP LINK, IN WHAT WILL PROBABLY BE A MOVE SHE'LL LATER REGRET!_

Some more Sages _IDIOTICALLY FALL INTO GANONDORF'S TRAP!_

Ganondorf _DOES SOME MORE EVIL STUFF!_

And Genna _GETS HER BELLYBUTTON PIERCED, MUCH TO THE DISMAY OF HER FATHER!_

Sounds like you've read it all before? **_YOU PROBABLY HAVE!_**


	4. Smog Talks to NPCs!

**The Mystical Object of Fate**

**(The Most Generic Zelda Fic Ever!)**

**By Galaxy Girl**

A/N: I sure do love pie. In fact, I've never met a pie that I didn't like. I've decided to base all of my future relationships on pie. If you don't like pie—SOME kind of pie, ANY kind of pie—I cannot trust you, and that is that.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER FOUR: Smog Talks to NPCs!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Smog, we really ought to be heading to **Kakariko Village** now," Puki the fairy advised wisely as they sat, for the twentieth minute in a row, staring unceasingly into the eyes of a big, scary gargoyle-esque monster sitting at the gates of Lake Hylia.

"In a minute," Link said, staring down the gargoyle as best he could without blinking.

"The Castle Town has been **completely encased in crystal**! Maybe someone in **Kakariko Village **knows what's going on!" Puki went on in a very obvious tone of voice.

"I've got to get past this gargoyle first."

"I don't know anybody who lives at **Lake Hylia** that can help us! Perhaps we should check in **Kakariko Village**?" Puki was becoming impatient.

"I'm going to get past this bloody gargoyle if it's the last thing I ever do," Link stated simply.

"I don't think you can get past it right now," Puki said nervously, backing up under Link's edgy shoulder-hat and giving off more of a yellow glow than a pink one for a moment. "I think it might be some kind of ridiculous obstacle set in place to give the game a more linear feel."

"What do you mean?" Link asked, eyes starting to burn as they tried very hard to outstare a gargoyle, of all things (who didn't understand why this dumb kid couldn't just scream in terror and run away like everyone else).

"Well, it would be silly if they left the entire land of Hyrule open and accessible to you at the beginning of the game like this," Puki reasoned. "I imagine you can only pass by this gargoyle when you find a certain object or weapon, and if logic serves me, I'm gonna guess that you're two temples away at the present time."

"But the Legend of Zelda is a series that has always prided itself on being non-linear and exploratory!" Link argued. "Why would they put obstacles like this to prevent people from completing the game in whatever order they wanted to?"

"Well, really, it's a staple of the series," Puki continued. "Even back on the original Legend of Zelda, though you could reach basically any temple from the start of the game, many of them were impossible to get through until you gathered weapons from the other dungeons first."

"That seems like it would be really frustrating to some people," Link said, unamused.

"Oh, it is. It kept a lot of illiterate morons like the author from ever coming anywhere close to finishing the game," Puki nodded sagely.

A mighty wind blew suddenly across the land of Hyrule, sending several random thunderclouds to rain their random lightning bolts down upon the Hero of Time and his smart-mouthed fairy.

"That was sudden," Link frowned.

"In any case, **KAKARIKO VILLAGE. **In BIG BOLD LETTERS. Let's GO THERE AND GET ON WITH THE PLOT, SMOG," Puki enunciated.

Within about twenty seconds (or so it would seem from the lack of travel descriptions in this story), Link and Puki were approaching the mighty gates of Kakariko Village. Homely village music played, people rushed around performing their NPC duties, and all seemed normal.

"Well, back to the ol' Hero Gig of Talking to Everyone I See," Link sighed heavily. "Gee, I sure hope none of them remember my name and yell it out."

"It shouldn't be a problem," Puki shrugged. "You're wearing your **Extraneous Belts of Tetsuya Nomura**, which allow you to take on the persona of **Smog, the Final Fantasy Hero**. As long as you remember to introduce yourself as such, you should be fine."

"Why are you repeating that information to me?" Link raised his eyebrows. "It was quite clearly explained in the last chapter."

"Oh. Sorry. Forgot," the fairy replied.

* * *

Kakariko Village was a charming, sleepy little town inhabited solely by a bunch of obsessive-compulsive freaks with only one or two defining character traits each. It was the second biggest city in Hyrule, and served as a very good place to go to learn gossip about the goings-on in the kingdom, as all the residents had nothing better to do but stand around and talk to themselves in vague clues and hints to how to make the game progress.

"First things first!" Link crossed his arms and nodded. "I ought to find **Impa, the Sage of Shadow.** She's the leader of Kakariko Village, and a fine foxy babe at that. She's also got close connections with the royal family, and will know what's become of Princess Zelda."

Scouring the village initially found no sign of Impa. Thus, Link decided to do the proper thing and interrogate every single person he met about her whereabouts.

The obvious first choice was a scrawny, goofy-looking man with a purple bouffant hairdo standing under the great tree in the entrance plaza of the village. "Harumph! Harumph!" he cleared his throat as Link approached. "Welcome my boy! Welcome to the village of Kakariko! My name is Shlock, and I'll be your welcome man today!"

Link and Puki glanced over this Shlock character, and promptly raised their eyebrows.

"Say there, Shlock," Link began curiously, "Isn't there usually a Hylian guardsman standing outside the gates of the village to welcome people in?"

"If you've noticed, the Hylian guardsman who is usually standing outside the gates of the village to welcome people in is currently missing from his post! I'm a believer in a good-old-fashioned small town welcome, so I've taken it upon myself to do his job for him until he returns!" Shlock recited stupidly, doing a crazy little twirl. "Harumph! Harumph!"

"Uh… huh," Link drifted off. "I see. Do you know where the guardsman has gone?"

"But I can't decide what kind of welcome I should give!" Shlock was obviously not listening. "I think 'Welcome!' is a bit too simple, but 'Salutations and greetings, majestic traveler!' is a little over the top… Oh, if only my father were here! My father used to be the head of the Kakariko Village Welcoming Committee. Oh, when he welcomed you, you felt like you were really home, even if you were only here on a visit!"

"Why are you telling me this?" Link backed away slowly from the strange man. "I just want to know about the guard at the gate! Why isn't he where he's supposed to be!"

"Oh PAPA!" Shlock dropped to his knees, sobbing. "WHY DID YOU HAVE TO DIE! WHY! WHY! The new head of the Welcoming Committee is nothing like my Papa at all! He's gruff and cranky, and far too serious! Always doing paperwork! My Papa is probably rolling in his grave right now, knowing that the only people there to welcome guests to our fine village are a soldier missing-in-action and his incompetent son! Oh, woe is me! PAPA!"

"You're weird," Link said plainly, escaping from Shlock as fast as he possibly could.

Unfortunately, AI improvements through the years had provided the NPCs in The Legend of Zelda: The Mystical Object of Fate the ability to notice poor Link before he chose to talk to them, sort of like that obnoxious creepy guy in Wind Waker who would follow you around and assault you every time you showed up without lugging his hideous furry-loving daughter back to him. As Link hurried through the entrance plaza to escape the melodramatic oddity that was Shlock the Bouffant Guy, he ran head-on into a familiar character, who promptly forced him into conversation.

"Oh!" she gasped, leaping backwards and away from him. "Hey, wait! I know you! You're the little boy who rescued my Cuccos when they all ran away!"

Link blinked momentarily before recognizing the woman as Anju the Chicken Lady. In a rare moment of un-lazy programming, the game designers had given her a completely new character model. She now wore a long white labcoat over her peasant dress, purple gloves that went up to her elbows, and an elaborate set of safety goggles (with a hair net) fit over her head.

"Oh… uh… Hello," Link waved a bit nervously.

"Now what was your name again?" Anju pointed at him and crossed her arms. "Lunk? No. That's not right… It sounded like that though. Lee… Lee something. Lee… Lin… Lyndon! That was it, right?"

Beads of sweat appeared on Link's forehead as he shook his head. "Oh, er, I'm sorry ma'am, you must be mistaken! I'm not… that kid. My name is Smog. See?" He gestured proudly at his nametag.

"That's strange," Anju mumbled quietly, scratching her chin with a rubber-gloved hand. "What was that kid's name? You really, really look like him. His name was… Li… Liiiiii…"

"Hey, look! It's LINK!" a nondescript NPC said as he walked by. "So ni- AAAAAGH!"

The scream of terror came as Link collapsed to his knees, spewing blood from his mouth and nose with his eyes rolling back in his head. It was probably almost exactly the result of the nondescript NPC suddenly shedding his clothing and thrusting his pelvis through his new leather pants.

**_"SHE BANGS, SHE BANGS! OH BABY WHEN SHE MOVES, SHE MOVES! I GO CRAZY, WELL SHE LOOKS LIKE A FLOWER BUT SHE STINGS LIKE A BEE! LIKE EVERY GIRL IN… HIS-TO-RY!" _**

"Oh no! Link!" Puki burst out in concern. "Oh SHIT- AAAAA- **_HE'S A COLD-HEARTED SNAKE! LOOK INTO HIS EYES! OH… OH-OH! HE'S BEEN TELLIN' LIES! HE'S A LOVER BOY AT PLAY! HE DON'T PLAY BY RULES! OH… OH-OH! GIRL, DON'T PLAY THE FOOL, NOW!"_**

"Fascinating!" Anju whipped out a notebook from her pocket and began scribbling notes as Link twitched spastically, screaming in tongues.

Puki eventually got a hold of himself and ditched the Paula Abdul wig in time to drop to Link's side and ease him down out of his curse episode with the emergency IV that Saria had provided him before they left the forest. Saria had forgotten to mention that Puki was a recent college graduate who had studied to become a nurse, and was well-versed in the art of curse recovery. All the while, Anju stood by, taking notes and nodding as though she were on to some kind of major epiphany.

As Link absorbed the saline and sipped weak tea from a thermos, he eyed Anju darkly and sneered. "I suppose you found that amusing?"

"It was fascinating!" she replied enthusiastically.

"Sadist."

"No. _Scientist_," Anju enunciated. "You see, after I bred my special pocket Cuccos and the blue Cucco, I decided that I was really onto something in the study of Cuccos. I decided to put my knowledge to good use and revolutionize the world of chicken farming as we know it!"

"Oh really?" Link sounded not the least bit interested.

"Yes. In fact, I've begun genetically engineering new, improved breeds of Cuccos in my laboratory. I've come up with seven new breeds of what I like to call **Ubercuccos. **They're super-strong, super-healthy, and they possess cool mutant powers capable of destroying small buildings!"

"SWEEEEEEET!" Link and Puki both whistled, because there's nothing cooler than mutants. Except maybe pirates. Mutant pirates are just too cool to possibly exist.

"Except…" Anju drifted off.

"Uh oh," Link was sensing a pointless, grueling sidequest with a crappy reward.

"My Ubercuccos became too powerful, and they escaped from my pen. Now they're running amok all over Hyrule as homicidal madmen drool over their sweet mutant superpowers!" Anju threw her arm over her forehead as though she was about to faint. "I fear what would happen if my Ubercuccos fell into the wrong hands!"

"And you want me to find them and capture them for you before they get captured by Ganondorf and destroy the world, don't you?"

"However did you guess?" Anju looked impressed. "Please! If my Ubercuccos don't return home soon, I fear that their powers will overload and self-destruct the entire planet!"

"Seriously?" Puki gaped.

"No. I just really want you to find them for me," Anju shrugged.

"Darn. That would've been really cool," the fairy lamented.

"If you promise to find my Ubercuccos for me, I'll give you this awesome machine I invented!" Anju threw up her hands, Zelda-body language for "You're getting something now!"

DUH NUH NUH NUUUUUUUUUUUUUH!

**Link got the UBERCUCCO ZAPPA! **

**This is a super-cool ray gun that's actually modified from one of those battery-powered bubble-blower guns. It shoots a beam of light that can capture Ubercuccos, restrain their powers, and teleport them back to Anju's pen. It still shoots bubbles too, in case you were wondering. Just turn down the power a little bit. **

**And listen to what Anju says about firing at anything else. She ain't kiddin' around, man. Just DON'T DO IT. **

"So," Link tossed the Ubercucco Zappa around from hand to hand, "This gun is only useful for capturing Ubercuccos? I got a freakin' weapon just for one stupid sidequest?"

"No, no. It blows bubbles too," Anju pointed out. "But I should warn you—ONLY fire that ray gun at an Ubercucco. NOT a regular Cucco, NOT any people, and definitely NOT at monsters."

"Why not?" asked Link.

"The results could be… _deadly,_" Anju hissed.

"Well jeez. Now I HAVE to try it!" he pointed the ray gun at the tree near the village entrance, where Shlock was still boohooing and sobbing for no really good reason. "Buckle up, sissymary…"

"NO MAN, I'M WARNING YOU!" Anju threw herself at Link and wrenched the gun from his hands. "DON'T FIRE THIS GUN AT ANYTHING BUT AN UBERCUCCO! If you do, you will release upon the world a hellish terror never before fathomed by any living person! Not even Ganondorf could fathom a terror this hellacious, okay!"

"Okay, okay!" Link waved his hands innocently and put the ray gun in the invisible space behind his shield/up his butt. "I promise I won't fire the gun at anything else!"

There was a short moment of silence. "What about the bubbles?"

"Oh, sure, shoot those at whatever," Anju shrugged. "But not the ray gun. I'm warning you."

"Okay. How will I know if I've found an Ubercucco instead of a regular one?" Link asked curiously.

"Oh, that's simple. Ubercuccos are colored in the scheme of ROY G. BIV."

"Oh, so one's red, one's orange-" Puki reasoned.

"What? Red? Orange? What are you talking about?" Anju rolled her eyes. "Remember that acronym! It stands for Rust, Off-White, Yellowstone Pine, Gray, Black, Ice Blue and…"

"And… Vivacious Pink?" Puki guessed.

"No. Violet. There really aren't any good colors that begin with V besides Violet," Anju shrugged.

"Yeah, sure. We'll find your stupid Ubercuccos," Link sighed. "But do we get a reward when we're done?"

"Oh, sure," Anju nodded.

"Will it be a good reward?"

"Probably not," she admitted.

"It never is," Link sighed.

"Bewaaaaaare…" Anju ran off, cackling to herself. "Bewaaaaaare the gun!"

* * *

Link and Puki continued their rounds about the village, speaking dutifully to every NPC and unwillingly volunteering themselves for about three more sidequests. Unfortunately, none of them could actually solve the problem at hand: Link needed to speak to Impa, and she was nowhere to be found.

At last, though, the fruitless interrogations led Link and Puki to a large house in the corner of the village, inside of which dwelled the aforementioned Head of the Kakariko Village Welcome Committee, a gruff bearded man named Orin. He had before appeared in another fan fiction by the author, entitled "Never My Destiny", in which he died terribly in a flash fire after confessing his deep love for Impa and making it clear to all that he was actually a clone of Auron from Final Fantasy X. Soon after his death, Ganondorf confronted Impa inside the Shadow Temple and tried to kill her, only to find he was too in love with her to go through with it. Then there was fluff. Lots and lots of awkward, awkward fluff.

The previous paragraph had very little to do with the story at hand, but it provided a clumsy segue into the next paragraph, one that depicted Impa imprisoned deep within the Shadow Temple.

As previously mentioned several times, Ganondorf was in the process of kidnapping Sages and imprisoning them in their respective temples to set up his giant Hyrule-wide Sage ray gun of evil. Impa had been the second Sage captured, as she was at Hyrule Castle when Ganondorf showed up all the way back in chapter two. It had also previously been mentioned that the imprisoned Sages were in an eternal sleep and therefore, quite unable to be tortured by being read snippets of lame G/I fluff.

However, because the author was a bleeding heart die-hard believer that Ganondorf and Impa was the One True Pairing for the Zelda series, she felt it necessary to insert an extraneous scene involving the two.

As Link and Puki continued their grueling task of interrogating the villagers, Impa was, in fact, several hundred feet away from them underground, in the farthest room of the Shadow Temple, chained up and glaring furiously at her captor, standing nearby and reading snippets of "Never My Destiny" to her.

_""To tell you the truth," Ganondorf began, as he had a seat on a low ivy-covered wall in the central courtyard of the castle, "I didn't want to come in because I don't think anyone else really wants to see me." _

_"Ah," Impa nodded, having a seat on the well next to him. She leaned back and wiped strands of her silver hair out of her face. "That's being a little hard on yourself." _

_"But it's true," he pointed out in a low voice. He shuffled his feet in the dirt down below the wall, tracing a circle and then erasing it over and over again. "I was a little out of line today... And I guess I wanted to know if I insulted you at all.""_

Ganondorf read excitedly, in a variety of different voices, occasionally glancing up at Impa over the rims of his reading glasses.

"This isn't FAIR, Ganondorf!" Impa snarled. "That part is from the THIRD chapter, which was written sometime back when the author was still in tenth grade! You can't use that to torture me when the writing style is outdated and inaccurate!"

"Torture? I'm trying to convince you that we belong together, Impa!" Ganondorf snorted. "I'm a single father and evil overlord trying to make his way in the world! I'm lost without a beautiful wife to prove a good motherly influence to Genna and help me relax after a long day of evil."

"I have no interest in being a mother to your creepy emo preteen daughter," Impa snapped. "Why don't you marry her mother and leave me out of it?"

"Impaaaa, you misunderstand! I have absolutely no feelings for Leela! I mean, not that she's ugly or anything… she's just got some emotional baggage that I'm not ready to devote my life to dealing with. You're the one I care about, baby!"

"Eat crap and die," Impa snapped. "Why is this part even IN the story!"

"I think it might be the author's attempt to add a dramatic character sub-story, or maybe a little romance too early for it to actually happen… After all, the Hero of Time won't be meeting up with Princess Zelda for several chapters now, and even then it'll be awkward for the author to write a romance scene between a strapping young hero and duck. BWAHAHAHA!" Ganondorf reasoned, flipping through the pages of the ancient chunk of fanfic. "Ooh, look, Impa! We have our first kiss here!"

"Gag me."

"It's too bad you think I'm disgusting," Ganondorf smiled, stepping towards the wall where Impa was chained. "With all the author's improvements in her writing style, our first kiss could be really hot this time around…"

"Blow it out your ass," Impa replied sharply.

Ganondorf smiled lecherously as he rested his hands on either side of Impa's chains, leaning in towards her. "That's too bad… we really could be something special, couldn't we…?"

"Oh my GOD," Impa broke character abruptly. "What in the HELL is this leading up to?"

Ganondorf paused and thought about that as well. "Wait a sec. Is it just me, or does it sound like this is leading into…"

Both of their eyes widened uncomfortably, and they blushed.

"LOOK, you little perverts!" Ganondorf shouted, facing the readers. "I know what you're thinking! You're scanning through this part, just hoping that it will be improperly labeled and actually be a LEMON! You were expecting this to turn into a LEMON, weren't you!"

"That's DISGUSTING!" Impa shrieked at the readers also. "GROSS! Come ON, as cute as the coupling is, could you ACTUALLY picture Ganondorf and me—YOU KNOW!"

"Din," Ganondorf winced with distaste. "That'd be like watching two wrestlers go at it."

"All that muscle… I doubt anybody who writes in this section could pull that off without wincing or crying a little bit in pain," Impa shuddered.

"I would like to see it, though," Ganondorf remarked off-handedly.

"When I get out of these chains I'm going to kill you," Impa said simply.

Amusing lemon jokes aside, the author was an adventurous sort of fanfic writer and actually tried cobbling out a lemon scene from that last bit, but chickened out at the last minute and edited it out. Those still interested can find the scene here:

http/ back to our regularly scheduled fanfic.

* * *

"Finally, the only NPC character in the entire village who's not a complete twit!" Link sighed with relief as they spoke to Orin, the guy from a couple paragraphs up. "We need to find Impa! Do you know where she's at?"

"No," Orin said briefly, busy signing paperwork.

"Oh. Uh… really? Are you sure?" Link twiddled his fingers.

"Yes, I'm sure."

"Oh. Okay, then. Thanks for your help or lack thereof," Link turned to leave.

"Sorry, I really don't have time to be helping you right now," Orin interrupted him just as he was about to leave the room. "I've been terribly busy since yesterday, when all the **Hylian guards employed here in the village up and quit.**"

"Oh. They quit!" Link grinned, finally getting to the bottom of the mystery. "Why'd they quit?"

"Not sure. But all the guards have been acting weird lately. Two of them showed up here last night, screaming and babbling on something about **Ganondorf** and some kind of **evil curse on the castle,** but we refused to believe such a ridiculous stories and **locked them up in the windmill loft** to keep them quiet," Orin exposited up a storm.

"So those two guards know what's going on!" Link snapped his fingers with realization. "Aha! I'll have to go speak to them."

"Sorry, I really can't let you do that. The windmill loft has been **sealed up** for a while now because the guy who lives there is a **psychopathic homicidal murderer**," Orin went on, just barely talking to Link as he continued filling out his paperwork. "There's only one other way into the windmill loft, but that way is quite classified and I'm afraid that only I and **Igor the gravekeeper** know it."

"Oh, gee, that sucks," Link blinked. "So he won't tell me either?"

"Oh, he probably will. He should be in his cabin right now. He's quite nice. He is the nephew of our previous gravekeeper, **Dampe**, who died several years ago and who still haunts his grave in the graveyard. First stone on the left as you turn left on the first path in the graveyard. He had a **Hookshot** that he bragged about in his diary all the time. The Hookshot can grab onto distant objects and pull you towards them, or pull them towards you. It's a very useful item. There's an extension for the chain that you can find in the **Water Temple in Lake Hylia**. Only by Hookshotting the jewel at the entrance can you open the door to the Water Temple. You'll need a **Zora Tunic and Iron Boots** to tackle the Water Temple. Immediately upon entering, drop down to the bottom level and go in the eastern passageway to find **Princess Ruto**, who will lead you up to the first spot where you can change the water level."

Puki blinked at the onslaught of information. "Wow… um… thanks, buddy, but this is the Mystical Object of Fate, not Ocarina of Time."

"Ah. **The Mystical Object of Fate**," Orin nodded, continuing his paperwork. "The Mystical Object of Fate was a temple treasure that the ancient temple builders had no idea what to do with or what to call it. Its purpose is unknown, and its powers are even more unknown. It was broken into **six pieces** and scattered throughout the six temples of the land, and only by assembling the pieces can you restore the Mystical Object of Fate and discover its mysteries. The first piece of the Mystical Object of Fate can be found in the **Forest Temple**, and it's rumored to be the mighty and unbreakable **Sp**-"

By the time Orin looked up, Link and Puki were long, long gone.

"Nobody in this damn village listens to me," Orin snapped, getting back to his paperwork.

* * *

Nearly half an hour later (held up by all the other nutjobs and NPCs there were to find around Kakariko), Link and Puki finally managed to make their way to the graveyard. It was a solemn, creepy sort of place, filled with graves laid out in a sort of yard.

"Boy. Sure is weird how there's that purple smoke blowing out of the Shadow Temple and engulfing the whole back of the Graveyard, huh, Smog?" Puki asked.

"It certainly is. Let's see about finding that gravekeeper!" Link said triumphantly.

The search came to an abrupt close as our heroes took three steps forward and caught sight of a freakishly ugly man standing in front of a grave. He was a hunch-backed fellow with a bulging eye, dirty overalls and thinning hair. A shovel rested on his shoulder, and he appeared to be walking around in circles around the aforementioned grave.

"Ah, hello, sir!" Link said cheerfully, waving to the hunchback. "Do you know the secret way into the windmill loft?"

"And why would I know that?" the hunchback snapped quite viciously.

Link and Puki glanced at one another nervously before the tall one spoke again. "I… er… Orin told us to ask the gravekeeper…"

"And what makes you think I'm the gravekeeper, eh?" the hunchback snarled, whirling on them and brandishing his shovel. "Huh? Is it because I'm a hunchback, is that it! Is it because me face is too hideous for the living to see, and thus I must make me living serving the dead! IS THAT IT!"

"N-no, sir… I…" Link was taken aback by the man's touchy nature. "I'm sorry! I just assumed you were the gravekeeper because you are carrying a shovel."

"OH! Now just because a man wants to carry around a shovel means he MUST be a gravekeeper!" the hunchback yelled angrily, crossing his arms. "What kind of a world are we living in when a man can't just lug a shovel around with 'im so he feels protected from all the psychos out there, eh! Oh, he's ugly and he's got a shovel, he's GOT to be the gravekeeper!"

"Well, sir, you were also pacing around that grave there. We assumed you were keeping it," Puki attempted to calm the man's fury.

"Oh, just because I'm ugly and circling a grave while carrying a shovel, I MUST be the gravekeeper, eh? That's a blatant bloody stereotype!" the hunchback was in full-fledged rage now, spiking his shovel against the ground and clenching his huge fists. "What if I lost me contact lens! Ya ever consider that! Maybe this grave's that of me dear Aunt Phyllis and I was paying me respects to her when I lost me contact lens and now I've got to find it 'cuz me doctor costs an arm and a leg for 'em! Ya ever think about that, you close-minded bastards, eh!"

"Again, I apologize, sir!" Link bowed quickly and respectfully. "We didn't mean any insult!"

"Well, thank you. That's better," the hunchback grunted.

"Could you tell us where we could find the gravekeeper, then?" asked Puki shyly.

"I'm him," the hunchback nodded proudly. "Igor's the name."

Link was dumbstruck. "Why did you argue about it with us for twenty minutes, then?"

"Just pointin' out that you shouldn't jump to conclusions, lad," Igor shrugged. "Now then, what's this you're asking about the windmill loft?"

"Yes! We heard that the villagers imprisoned two crazy guards in there yesterday, and we need to get in to talk to them!" Puki explained.

"Can't do that, ladies and gentlemen, the windmill loft's locked now to keep that crazy fellow from coming out and hanging us all by our entrails," Igor told them regretfully. "Sorry to break it to ya."

"Well yes, but Orin said there was a secret way inside that only you and he knew about," Link pestered.

"Wait—did you call me a lady!" Puki burst out suddenly, glowing bright red.

"Oh yah, there's another way in. An' I know where it is too, but I can't tell you," Igor replied.

"Are you sure? See, I… uh… I happen to be a Hero of Time, and I need to get into the windmill loft so I can talk to the guards and find out what happened at the castle."

"You said LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!" Puki shrieked indignantly. "I am SO SICK of people calling me a woman!"

"Oy, laddie, sorry to say I can't let you in. Town policy. I'd be getting a swift kick in me pants from Orin and Lady Impa if'n they found out I was blabbing the secret around."

"Please, sir. It's really important. I think a megalomaniacal and evil Gerudo King may have taken over the castle and cursed Princess Zelda and myself, and the only way I can get to the bottom of things and advance the plot is if I speak to the guards from chapter two who are locked up in your windmill."

"You're really one to talk about stereotypes! Just because I'm a fairy and just because my default glow happens to be pink and just because I am a nurse by profession, YOU CAN'T JUST ASSUME THAT I'M A GIRL!" Puki was in rage mode. "It only serves to reinforce negative specieist stereotypes! How will our society ever move forward towards becoming a more gentle, accepting utopia if MORONS LIKE YOU CAN'T FATHOM THE FACT THAT IT'S VERY POSSIBLE THERE MIGHT BE A MALE FAIRY NURSE NAMED 'POOKIE' WHO IS PINK?"

Link reached out and snatched Puki from midair, tucking him into his shoulder-hat to keep him quiet for a moment. "You're the only one I can count on, sir! Orin was too busy to talk to me, and if you don't tell me the way into the secret passage, I'll never be able to save the world!"

"Oh I'm flattered, me boy, but I can't tell it to the likes of you," Igor shook his head. "No, no-sir. If I told you about the secret way into the windmill loft under this grave I'm pacing around, there's no telling how long it'd take before every person in town was rushing in there to poke the crazy windmill guy with sticks and throw rocks at him. Not to mention help escape those two crazy soldiers from yesterday. No sirree! Sorry, you two, but I don't want Mr. Orin banging down me door and yelling at me for—"

Igor looked down to see the grave yanked out of its place and suspiciously Final Fantasy-esque boot marks leading downwards.

"Nobody in this damn village listens to me!" he huffed, getting to work filling up the hole again.

* * *

Twenty minutes into an impossibly long secret passage filled to the brim with… nothing, surprisingly, Link was relieved to see a beam of light coming from behind a door about twenty feet ahead.

"Oh thank DIN!" Link sighed heavily. "What kind of morons would build that long of a secret tunnel just to sneak into the windmill loft?"

"Doesn't seem probable, does it?" Puki said idly, looking around. "Digging a tunnel underneath a graveyard. You'd think you'd have problems with—"

The moment the words escaped Puki's mouth, something heavy landed on the ground behind them with a THUMP and a clatter.

Frozen in place, Link swallowed hard. "Hey, Puki."

"Yeah, Smog?"

"What do you think that was?"

"Well, all physics in mind, I'm going to guess it was probably either a coffin, or a misplaced dead body falling out of the ground above us and landing in the tunnel."

"Because it's a stupid idea to build a tunnel underneath a graveyard, due to erosion and natural shifting of the earth eventually throwing the bodies out into the tunnel, right?"

"That would be my guess."

"Are you gonna look back to see it?"

"No. Definitely, definitely not."

"Okay. Me either. Let's just keep walking and pretend we didn't hear it."

As Link and Puki exited the tunnel via the doorway ahead, Igor screamed in agony and clutched at his ankle after an unfortunate step near one of the shallower pieces of earth. "AAAGH ME LEG, ME LEG! WHOSE BLOODY IDEA WAS IT TO DIG UNDER THE GRAVEYARD, ANYHOO!"

In fact, it had been Igor's idea. Igor tried not to think about this as he stumbled to his feet and limped away. Great. Now EVERYONE would assume the hideous bug-eyed hunchback with a shovel, _and a limp_ was the gravekeeper.

* * *

Meanwhile, Ganondorf was gloating.

He'd learned a long time ago that gloating was an unhealthy habit for a megalomaniacal overlord to get into. You gloat about your impending success, and then some kid in tights shows up and locks you in an alternate dimension for a decade or so.

But he really couldn't help it this time. Things were going so WELL. Link was cursed, Zelda was gone, four Sages had already fallen into his trap, and now there were only two more Sages to capture before his master plan could be set into motion!

Ganondorf was having some slight trouble with the last two Sages, though. Big Brother Darunia of the Gorons and Princess Ruto of the Zoras were somewhat legendary for being a few of the dullest crayons in the box, yet they had miraculously figured out that something was dreadfully wrong when their four Sagely colleagues and Zelda all went missing at the same time. Ganondorf had as yet been unable to even get close to capturing them.

Big Brother Darunia, the Sage of Fire, had barricaded himself inside the subterranean Goron City with a few well-placed giant rocks held together by Krazy Glue and a little fire magic. Ganondorf had tried for hours to break past the seal but eventually failed, deciding to set a bloodthirsty monster outside the city on the mountain trail just in case the Goron ever decided to come out.

Princess Ruto, meanwhile, had disappeared completely. Ganondorf had shown up in Zora's Domain and done a thorough search of every Zora there, unable to find one that even remotely looked to be female. This was not easily done, however, since Ganondorf had to ask one of the Zoras how to tell the difference between a male and female Zora, and the answer grossed him out so bad he'd just given up. There were armies of monsters patrolling all over Hyrule in search of the missing Zora princess at this very moment.

But besides his Sage problems, things couldn't have been better for the Evil King. He'd finally gotten a chance to kick back and relax the night before, as Genna had gone back to Gerudo Valley for Marisa's birthday slumber party.

As the thought crossed his mind, the door to the great hall opened and Genna skipped inside, still wearing her pink and black frilly pajamas with her hair in pigtails. "Good morning, Daddy!"

"Genna, my dear! Good morning!" Ganondorf beamed. "How was Marisa's slumber party?"

"Oh, WOW, Daddy, you wouldn't believe it! So I get there, right, and Jessa tells me 'Oh yeah, by the way, we didn't invite Sylia so make sure she doesn't find out' and I'm like, 'Okay!' so then we get inside and Sylia's best friend Marya is there, and Marya goes like, 'Where's Sylia?' And I'm like, 'I don't know!' But then Cecily's such an idiot she goes, 'I don't know if Marisa invited her' and then Marya gets all mad and we tried to calm her down, because y'know, even Marya has to admit that Sylia's been like totally a brat lately since she started hanging out with Emilia, and Emilia and her friends used to pick on Jessa all the time and it's like really hard for Jessa to hang out with Sylia anymore, y'know? And poor Marisa, she just wants everyone to get along and we're all totally steamed for like an hour until Marisa's mom finally let us break out the cake and stuff and then everybody forgot about it and it was like really cool."

Ganondorf's eyes glazed over. "Oh. That's… neat."

"Okay, so then, we totally ate—and Jessa ate like SIX pieces of cake, seriously! She's so skinny! I can't believe she can eat that much! So anyway, we ate and then we gave Marisa her presents and I gave her a Ring of Ultimate Power that she can use to flatten boulders or rend earthquakes or clean her room or something like that, except I have one just like it so now we're all totally BFF, y'know? And Cecily got her the cutest little stuffed horse, and I totally want one now so next time we go shopping I'll tell you where she got it and will you totally buy one for me, Daddy?"

"Uh… sure?" Ganondorf thought he detected a question in there, so he answered it.

"YAY THANK YOU DADDY but anyway! Here's the great part! So Marisa's mom took us to the mall, right? Because we were gonna watch movies but then we'd all seen the movies they rented so Marisa asked her mom to take us to the mall and she did, so we were walking around and we see this cute little jewelry store and there's this one little charm on an earring, and it's SOOOOOO CUTE! Except none of us have pierced ears yet, so we were looking at it, and Marya tells me, 'I bet you won't!' And I'm all 'Nuh-uh!' and she's all 'Yuh –huh!' And so we totally argued for a while and she double doggie dared me to do it so I did and it really hurt but it looks SOOOOOOOOOOO CUTE ON ME!"

Ganondorf paused. "Wait… what?"

"Look, Daddy!" Genna lifted up her pajama shirt to reveal a piercing through her belly-button, the earring a small charm depicting a Triforce.

There was a short moment of silence before Ganondorf's eyes bulged out of his head. "HOLY MOTHER OF DIN, GENNA ELIZABETH DRAGMIRE YOU DID NOT PIERCE YOUR BELLYBUTTON!"

"Isn't it cute?" Genna giggled.

"NO, IT'S NOT CUTE! IT'S ABSOLUTELY ABHORRENT! YOU ARE TEN YEARS OLD, GENNA, AND THERE IS NO WAY I WILL HAVE ANY DAUGHTER OF MINE WEARING SUCH A SLEAZY PIECE OF JEWELRY AND SHOWING IT OFF TO ALL THE LITTLE DIRTBAG BOYS AT SCHOOL!" Ganondorf roared furiously, his face turning bright red.

"It's not SLEAZY!" Genna shrieked. "And the boys at school are not dirtbags!"

"THEY'RE DIRTBAGS IF THEY'RE LOOKING AT MY DAUGHTER'S BELLYBUTTON!" Ganondorf seethed, clenching his fists until veins bulged out of his forehead. "THIS IS A MOVE OF ABSOLUTE INSUBORDINATION AND DEFIANCE, GENNA ELIZABETH DRAGMIRE! YOU WILL REMOVE THAT PIERCING THIS INSTANT!"

"You don't UNDERSTAND!" Genna shrilled, stomping at the floor. "You're an old guy and you don't understand what it's like to be a kid these days! You are so uptight, Daddy! I thought you were cool!"

"Remove that piercing right now!" Ganondorf roared.

"NO! I WON'T!"

"Remove that piercing or I'll do it for you!"

"I HATE YOU DADDY, YOU'RE SO MEAN!" Genna ran off to her room sobbing melodramatically. Within a few minutes, the pounding beats of Evanescence could be heard, along with Genna singing at the top of her lungs.

Ganondorf flipped frantically through his parenting manuals, in the mean time, looking for some solution to this dreadful problem.

On the bright side, however, things were going well as far as his evil plan was concerned!

* * *

The door led to the windmill loft, emerging from a place on the wall high above the spinning gears of the windmill below. The door had not existed in Ocarina of Time, but the game designers were trying their darnedest to make it so it seemed like it COULD have.

The windmill was dark and musty, silent except for the sound of weary voices singing from down below.

"Negative forty-two bottles of nonalcoholic beverage on the wall… Negative forty-two bottles of nonalcoholic beverage!"

"If one o' them bottles should happen to fall…"

"Negative forty-three bottles of nonalcoholic beverage on the wall!"

"Say, Charley?"

"Yeah, Ted?"

"How is it possible to have negative bottles of non-alcoholic beverage falling off a wall?"

"Well, that's how the song goes, Ted."

"Well yeah, but up until the number zero, you've got bottles of non-alcoholic beverage falling off a wall and it makes perfect sense. But then you hit… what's the word. Starts with a q…"

"A quandary."

"Yeah, a quandary. A conundrum if you will. How can zero bottles of non-alcoholic beverage fall off a wall?"

"Well, that's easy. Nothing falls off the wall. So that'd be zero bottles of non-alcoholic beverage. And zero bottles of anything else, for that matter. Just a wall."

"Okay, well I getcha there, but you gotta admit that negative bottles falling off a wall is just silly."

"Maybe they're putting them back up on the wall in the negative part. Or maybe they're falling up."

"Well, maybe so, but what if you're singing the other version?"

"What?"

"There's two versions of the song. In one, you're taking the bottles off the wall yourself and passing them around. In the other, the bottles are just falling off on their own accord."

"Well, then you'd be taking bottles from your friends and putting them back up on the wall. Or the bottles snatch themselves from being passed around and jump up on the wall for safekeeping."

"Bottles can't jump!"

"Well, if bottles can't jump then how do they fall off the wall on their own accord?"

"Huh?"

"Bottles don't just happen to fall like that!"

"Oh, sure they do! What if there was… um… the wind blowin' on them from the back?"

"That'd have to be a mighty strong wind. Maybe somebody's pushing 'em off."

"Who is this mysterious bottle-keeper anyway? Takin' them down, passin' them around, happening to fall them… stacking them back up on the wall when you get to zero…"

"What's he doing putting bottles on a wall anyway?"

"Maybe he's bored."

"He's really boring, that's it. His friends won't hang out with him until he gives them beer—"

"Or nonalcoholic beverage."

"Yeah, or that. So he's gotta create the illusion of the bottles on the wall to give his life some kind of meaning."

"What number were we on?"

"Uh… I forgot. Let's just start at 99 again."

"I think this wall fellow's got a drinking problem."

Link made a heroic leap from the top of the windmill loft, held forward on the control stick in order to roll safely at the bottom, and cracked three vertebrae in his spine, dying instantly.

Or that's what would have happened if the physics of the real world transferred over to the game world. In game reality, Link landed gracefully at the bottom and struck a dramatic pose.

"Good day, gentle guards!" Link glanced at them with a sparkle in his eye. "Are you the two crazy guards from chapter two?"

"We are _not_ crazy, for the last time!" the one with the bandaged nose snapped, wriggling in his chains. "It's not fair! We were attempting to do our guardly duty by running to warn the people here about Ganondorf's evil curse, but noooooo—the bloody skeptics throw us in here with that nutbag windmill guy!"

"We're gonna die. We're gonna die," the scrawnier one with the less-shiny badge had resigned himself to his fate several hours ago.

"You're not gonna die," Link assured them, waving his hands gently. "I'm going to let you out, if you tell me everything you know about what happened at the castle."

"What, right now?" the bandaged one raised his eyebrows.

"Uh… yes. Right now," Link replied.

"How do we know you're not just gonna listen to what we have to say, and then run for your life screaming and leave us here to be hung in our own entrails by that crazy fellow?" asked the younger guard suspiciously.

"Why would I do that?"

"Because the sight of the man sends even the bravest into a frenzy of trouser-pissing terror!" the bandaged one shrieked.

"I wouldn't do that! I'm the Hero of Time!" Link huffed.

Puki appeared from his shoulder hat and nodded in agreement. "Yeah, totally! This guy here? He's a legend!"

"Oh! I've heard of you!" the younger guard said excitedly. "You're the reason I became a guard at all! You're—"

"DON'T SAY IT!" Link and Puki shrieked in unison.

"Link?" the bandaged guard guessed. "Wh- AAAAAAAAAGGH! **_EVERY LITTLE THING I DO! NEVER SEEMS ENOUGH FOR YOU! YOU DON'T WANNA LOSE IT AGAIN! BUT I'M NOT LIKE HIM!"_**

Once Puki had assisted Link in calming the flames that had spontaneously combusted all over his body and threatened to devour him in a hellish inferno, and once the bandaged guard reappeared in his guard uniform instead of the hoodie, baggie pants, Skechers and a bleach-blond spiked hairdo, the conversation continued as usual.

"So what are your guys' names?" Puki asked curiously, hoping to alleviate the guards' fears of abandonment and entrail-strangulation.

"Charley Daggetto, formerly Officer Charley Daggetto of the Hyrule Castle Guard!" the younger guard saluted through his chains.

"And Ted Norberto, formerly Corporal Ted Norberto of the Hyrule Castle Guard," the woozy Ted followed shortly after.

"Formerly guards?" Puki queried.

"Oh yes. We all quit yesterday," Charley nodded. "Much too dangerous, the guarding business. What with the evil overlords crushing you like insects in the palms of their hands."

"That one yesterday punched me inna nose," Ted said distastefully.

"At least he was a little more polite than to just crush us like insects without giving us that friendly warning, eh, Ted?" Charley asked him.

"Oh, yes, quite polite. Unfortunately I still don't approve of his horrible curse that engulfed the entire castle town in energy-sucking crystal to power up his ray gun," Ted grumbled.

Link was taking notes on a Steno notepad. "Ooh. Ray gun. Okay…"

"And cursing the princess and throwing her out of the castle, that was just plain rude," Charley added.

"Almost as rude as when the villagers threw us in here with that crazy fellow!" Ted wriggled in his chains.

"Wait a minute."

Puki brought an abrupt halt to the conversation. "How in the hell did you guys know all that! I don't recall Ganondorf ever telling you two his evil plan."

"I think it's called plot device. There's really no way for you two to know the evil plan unless we tell you it, even though there's really no possible way we could have known it in the first place," Charley shrugged.

"Oh. I see," Puki did not see at all.

"Speaking of that crazy windmill fellow, I wonder where he could have gotten off to?" Ted said at exactly the minute a dark shadow fell over the four of them.

"Hey. Hang on. How can a shadow have glowing red eyes!" Link spun around to face the apparition, and was quite less confident a moment later. "… Oh. I see."

"GWAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAH!" laughed the crazy windmill fellow.

"What an inconvenient cliffhanger," Puki commented.

"Not to mention one that was obviously thrown in because the author is bored with writing the chapter and wants to publish it ASAP," Charley added.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ON THE NEXT CHAPTER OF THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: THE MYSTICAL OBJECT OF FATE!

Link must fight for his life to avoid BEING HUNG BY HIS ENTRAILS!

Charley and Ted LOOK FOR A LESS DANGEROUS CAREER PATH!

Ganondorf finally BUYS GENNA THE PONY SHE ALWAYS WANTED!

And the author puts in a joke that SHE BETS LESS THAN HALF THE READERS WILL UNDERSTAND!

Sounds like you've read it before? **_YOU PROBABLY HAVE! _**


	5. A Dungeon Is Coming Up!

**The Mystical Object of FATE**

**The World's Most Generic Zelda Fanfic!**

**By Galaxy Girl!**

A/N: I think I prefer Lays to Ruffles as far as potato chips go. Though truthfully, I've never met a potato chip I didn't like, except for those crappy reduced fat jobbies cooked in Olestra—the fat substitute that causes anal leakage. Not that I'm speaking from experience. I really like those kettle chips, the big thick ones sopping in grease? Mmmm. Why are all my author's notes about food lately?

* * *

CHAPTER FIVE: There Is A Dungeon Coming Up!

* * *

Jennifer Reynolds was in 10th grade at Sunnyvale Senior High School in Santa Monica, California. She was 15 years old and a die-hard gamer. She bought all her clothes at Hot Topic, wore black eyeliner and mascara, cut holes in her jeans on purpose with a pair of scissors, and wore safety pins as earrings, just for fun.

She was often bullied by the kids at school because—though nobody knew it—Jennifer had magical powers. She could predict things before they happened, and could unlock doors just by staring at them and blinking her eyes! She had moonlighted in Harry Potter self-insert fiction before, but felt it was time for something new in her life.

So it started as a normal Tuesday. But little did she know, this was going to be the craziest Tuesday of her life! She was going to help save Hyrule!

It all began as Jennifer got home from school, lamenting how nobody understood her, not even her parents, and how it was really tough to be a kid like her this day and age. She threw her backpack down at the end of her bed and turned on her N64. She sat down to play her favorite game, Zelda: Ocarina of Time. But first she got up and used the bathroom, washing her hands carefully with lavender soap and proceeding to the kitchen to make herself a peanut butter and honey sandwich and a glass of milk for a snack. Then she pet her dog Woofy and headed back to her bedroom, where she sat down to play her favorite game, Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

"Why is the screen all weird and fuzzy today?" Jennifer said to nobody in particular.

Suddenly, there was a lightning storm outside. Jennifer stood up and stepped forward to smack her TV back into focus, but at that precise second, a bolt of lightning struck the roof of her family's ranch-style house and she was promptly sucked into a static vortex on the side of the screen.

Jennifer awoke in the middle of Kakariko Village. She sat up, brushed the dust off of her "YOU LAUGH BECAUSE I'M DIFFERENT, I LAUGH BECAUSE YOU'RE ALL THE SAME" T-shirt (ooh, the bleeding irony in that garment), brushed her bleached bangs out of her face and whistled.

"I don't think I'm in California anymore!" she said, again, to nobody in particular. "Gee, getting sucked into a video game is little bit harder than explaining how I could get an invitation to Hogwarts for no particular reason."

Of course, Jennifer recognized that she had, in fact, been sucked into the video game. This was her dream come true! She would now be able to interact with her favorite video game world and romance her favorite characters and punish her least favorites, all for herself and not through the avatar of a silly little blond kid who grew up to be her heartthrob!

Hearing a commotion from the windmill on top of the hill, Jennifer surmised that Link was in trouble inside! She raced up the hill on the way to defend her one true pixilated love from his obvious peril—then they could venture together and save the world, even having pixilated sex sometime down the line in chapter 6, maybe.

This roundabout introduction brings us to the real hero of our story who, exactly as Jennifer predicted, was inside the windmill and very much in danger.

* * *

When we last left Link, his dutiful fairy Puki and the two hapless castle guards from chapter two, they were about to be cleaved into tiny bits by a psychopathic axe-murdering organ grinder.

Link was experiencing the old "life flashing before his eyes" bit in what he believed were his final seconds of living. It was a baffling and confusing mess of visions, as many fans and even the creators of the Legend of Zelda series could not seem to get their facts straight as to what order the games went in, how many Links there were, and how many adventures this particular Link (Link 1 to most fans) had actually been on. Some prescribed that there were two different timelines going on, started at the end of Ocarina of Time when Link went back to the past to relive seven years, seven years during which Ganondorf was locked up in the Sacred Realm and ten years before his eventual escape that brought about the beginning of this fanfic. Other fans believe that the timeline continued from the…

Oh for the love of God, it's a video game. Who the hell wastes their time coming up with this stuff?

In any case, Link was sure that his end was nigh and responded understandably, screaming in a girlish shrill at the top of his lungs and turning around to make a wild break for the door. "LET ME OUT LET ME OUT I'M TOO YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL TO DIE!"

"Oh, my hero!" Ted yelled angrily from across the loft, where the Deranged Windmill Guy was slowly appearing from the shadows. He was an extremely short and unassuming bald man with wild sideburns, a nu-metal goatee, and obviously deep psychological problems. He wielded a long butcher knife in one hand while cranking along on his organ, eternally repeating the Song of Storms.

Rumors flew all around the village about who this frightening man was, where he came from and what might have made him so desperately insane. Some believed he was not a man at all, but in fact, a curse placed upon the windmill by vengeful spirits of the ancient Sheikah who once lived in Kakariko.

Some said that he came from a long line of generations of windmill-keepers, and that one day, a kid came with an ocarina and messed up the windmill he had worked so hard to keep safe. The resulting trauma left him a babbling, empty shell of a man with no means to express himself save for stabbing people in the carotid arteries to introduce himself.

Some say he was just a man who had waited years and years for his Xbox 360 to come in… and it never came.

Others just shrugged that off and concluded he was a complete nutcase. I mean, who in the hell would actually _want_ an Xbox 360?

"GO AROUND GO AROUND GO AROUND!" the Deranged Windmill Guy howled maniacally. "GO AROUND, GO AROUND! I JUST WANT TO CUT YOU DOWN! WATCH ME AS I STAB! IT'LL ONLY HURT A TAD!"

"NOOOHOHOHO!" Link sobbed, clawing at the door handle. "I CAN'T OPEN IT!"

"It's locked!" Puki stated the obvious.

"WE'RE ALL DOOMED!" Charley moaned.

"Oh, thank GOODNESS the Hero of Time showed up! I was starting to wonder how on earth we'd get out of here without being brutally stabbed to death and hung in our own entrails… oh _wait-_" Ted lamented sarcastically.

Link's head was spinning and he had no idea what to do. The guards were screaming, Puki was yelling at him about "responsibility" and how he "promised not to run away" or something stupid like that, and the Deranged Windmill Guy was making his slow approach, the butcher knife raised over his head.

"HOLD STILL I JUST WANT TO MURDER YOU AND HANG YOU IN YOUR OWN ENTRAILS!" the Deranged Windmill Guy said pleasantly.

It looked like the end. But just as Link ducked and prepared himself to meet his stabbity doom, the lock on the door magically released and Jennifer sped into the loft, a magical sword she pulled out of her ass gleaming in the room's pale torchlight.

"You won't hurt Link as long as I live!" Jennifer screamed dramatically. "My name is Jennifer and I'll destroy you, monster!"

"Oh thank GODS! I need you, Jennifer!" Link cried out. "I need you so much I can almost taste it!"

"Don't worry Link, I'll save you! And then we can talk about how much we need each other!" Jennifer yelled, still dramatically.

"I'm so glad you came!" Link jumped to his feet. "Here, would you mind helping me for a second?"

"Of course! What do you need?"

Link promptly grabbed Jennifer by the shoulders and shoved her unceremoniously towards the Deranged Windmill Guy. He stabbed her in the throat and she died instantly.

The Deranged Windmill Guy cackled wickedly, eyeing his first kill of the day. And there would be more… oh, so much more…

"NOW, YOU ALL WILL MEET YOUR DOOMS-" he said to an empty windmill loft, as the door slammed shut and locked behind three escaping humans and a fairy. "OH POOPIE! NOBODY IN THIS DAMN VILLAGE LISTENS TO ME."

* * *

"That was NUTS!" Ted burst out as the lucky escapees tried to catch their breath on the opposite side of the door. "I thought for sure we were done for!"

"Of course not! Not when the Hero of Time's on your side!" Link said triumphantly, the tone in his voice suggesting he had that planned all along.

"Would you like me to get you a change of underwear, Smog?" Puki whispered in his ear.

"Yes. There's a good fairy," Link replied nonchalantly. "Boxers, please. With the Power Rangers on them, if you can find them?"

"Right away, Smog!" Puki zipped off to the nearest department store.

"You killed that poor li'l self-insert author," Charley said, his eyes wide with horror as he glanced at Link judgmentally.

"The who now?"

"That girl in there! Jennifer Reynolds from Santa Monica, California!" Charley snapped. "What kind of hero are you to murder an innocent self-insert author?"

"Hey, now, let's be serious here. Jennifer Reynolds wasn't a real person. The author made her up," Link defended himself. "There is no Jennifer Reynolds attending a Sunnyvale High School in Santa Monica, California. At least… I don't think there is…"

"That doesn't excuse it! Does it… Ted?" Charley addressed his former aide-de-camp.

"Jennifer Reynolds was a metaphor. A symbolic representation of a certain overdone sort of fan fiction. Satire, Charley, y'know?" Ted explained. "Her abrupt and callous death served as a vessel through which the author could express her dismay at the prominence of that particular genre."

"And it also got me this neat item!" Link held up the spoils of the battle.

DUH NUH NUH NUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH!

**Link got the SOUL OF JENNIFER!**

**This is a useful item that allows Link to summon self-insert characters for use as meat shields whenever he needs somebody to take a hit for him! Forget the "empty shell" nonsense and that silly Elegy of Emptiness—this sucks a real, living, breathing gamer into the 64-bit world of Hyrule to help Link save his own selfish ass! Isn't that COOL? Heartless, but COOL!**

"See? Isn't that NEAT?" Link gushed.

"Neat indeed, Hero of Time. Now, Charley, if there is a real Jennifer Reynolds from Santa Monica, California out there, she should relax and know that the author came up with that name on a whim. It was just a coincidence."

"So nobody actually died in there?" Charley asked, still sounding worried.

"Nope. But YOU COULD BE THE FIRST!" Ted broke the fourth wall quite abruptly.

"That's right! Have you ever wanted to star in your own self-insertion fanfic and be sucked into Hyrule?" Link yelled at the readers. "Well, now you CAN! If you participate in the SOUL OF JENNIFER BONANZA AUTHOR SUCKUP GIVEAWAY, you could win the honor of seeing YOUR NAME in this fanfiction as I summon you out of the comfort of your dens and into the path of whatever monster, ghoulie or ghosty is about to rip me to shreds!"

"You said it Link! All you have to do to enter is send your name, location and three full sentences of glowing praise to the author! And if she finds your glowing praise does enough to feed her bloated, pulsating ego, she'll have you killed in any number of horrible ways in an upcoming chapter of The Legend of Zelda: The Mystical Object of FATE!" Ted continued.

"Spaces are limited, so send your entries as soon as possible! I've got a lot of world-saving to do, any only one beautiful, flawless and unscarred body to do it with!" Link gave the readers a playboyish wink and snapped back into character.

"You SELLOUT!" Charley screamed to the heavens. "Whoring out ad space for reviews! You are a sad excuse for an author, you—"

Charley was hit in the head by a rock that fell quite randomly out of nowhere, conveniently as Puki arrived with something in a shopping bag to change the subject.

"Here you are, Smog," Puki handed the bag over.

Link grinned. "Thank you Puki. Now, Officers Norberto and Daggetto, was it?"

Ted helped Charley off the ground and nodded. "That's us."

"Hahahah… your names. There's an in-joke nobody's gonna get," Link chuckled and pulled out the Steno Pad of Time. "Let's get down to business and the whole reason we rescued you in the first place. What's happened at the castle?"

"It's **Ganondorf**," Charley shivered at the thought. "He has returned!"

"HE HAS!" Link screamed.

"Smog, you knew that," Puki reminded him.

"… Oh yeah, I guess I did. Anyway, carry on."

Ted blinked. "Um… yes. **Ganondorf** came to the castle just the other day, having **escaped from the Sacred Realm** with the help of **his daughter, Genna!** Now the two of them are in the middle of a plot to take over all of Hyrule by **absorbing energy** from the land and using it to power **a giant ray gun**—a ray gun that will spread Ganondorf's dark magic all across the universe!"

"Yes, yes, I believe you covered all that," Link ushered them on.

"They have encased all of Hyrule Castle and the market in an **evil dark crystal** to absorb energy and send it to the remains of Hyrule Castle, which has become Ganondorf's **Second Impenetrable Fortress of Doom**," Charley added. "They've also been **capturing the Sages** to use them as energy conduits for the ray gun! They've already captured **Nabooru and Impa**, as a matter of fact! Oh, it's terrible!"

"Wait a minute. I already knew all of that!" Link said suddenly. "You mean to tell me I just risked my ass to bust you guys out of a fate worse than death, and you can't even tell me anything new?"

"You didn't know that the castle had been crystallized!" Ted argued.

"Or that Impa is not here in the village, as she has been kidnapped and is in the back of the Shadow Temple," Charley pointed out.

Link looked confused. "Didn't I? But in an earlier chapter I said…"

"SHHH. THAT WAS A MISTAKE," Puki whispered obviously.

"Oh. Dammit!" Link whined. "This sucks! I don't know where to go now!"

"Yes you do. **Death Mountain**. You were going to go warn **Darunia** and make sure he doesn't fall into Ganondorf's trap like Impa and Nabooru did," Puki reminded him again.

"… Oh yeah. Why can't I—and it most certainly must be my fault and not the fault of the stupid author-- remember anything more than a few chapters?" Link cursed. "I feel like I'm in that movie _Memento_."

"In any case," Puki interrupted, "We probably ought to be going here pretty soon. If we make it up the mountain too late, Ganondorf might have already captured Darunia!"

"Right you are, Puki!" Link said triumphantly. "Gentlemen, I thank you very much for your information. Good luck finding new jobs, and wish me luck in saving the day!"

"Good luck, Hero of Time!" Ted waved cheerfully.

"Yes, thank you! And good luck, Link-" Poor Charley was not good at paying attention. "Whoa- **_I TRYYYY TO GO ON LIKE I NEVER KNEW YOU! I'M AWAKE THOUGH MY WORLD IS HALF ASLEEEEP… I PRAAAY FOR THIS HEART TO BE UNBROKEN! BUT WITHOUT YOU ALL I'M GOING TO BE IS…" _**

"IIIIN-COM-PLEEEEETE!" Ted was a BSB fan and finished up the verse after Charley collapsed in an unconscious heap. "Impromptu time for a sing-along there, Charley."

"That wasn't a sing-along," Puki said angrily, pulling out a tube of ointment to spread on the vicious, pus-filled hives rising on Link's unconscious body. "Smog, are you all right?"

"Unhahhnh…" Link mumbled, waking up slowly. "Ouchies! You still have that change of underwear for me, right?"

"Yeah?"

"Good, because I just doubled the need for one."

"Oh, come now," Ted said distastefully, "The Backstreet Boys are not that bad. In terms of boy-bands, they actually have quite nice lyrics and vocals."

"It has nothing to do with the Backstreet Boys, sir!" Puki argued. "The Hero of Time is a victim of a dreadful curse! Just hearing pop music inflicts dire injury upon his body, and unless we stop Ganondorf, the curse will consume him and transform him into something other than human!"

"I didn't hear that part in the prophecy!" Link interjected, having a bowl of chicken soup to replace all the breakfast he'd just projectile vomited. "_Something other than human_?"

"Looks that way," Puki said nervously. "In any case, Mr. Norberto, if you don't mind, please refrain from calling the Hero of Time by his first name? Call him Smog if you must."

"Yes, ma'am," Ted sighed.

Puki's eyebrow twitched. "Oh for the love of-"

"Come on, Puki, let's go find a bathroom," Link wobbled to his feet and snagged his fairy out of the air mid-bitch-out.

"WHAT PART OF 'MALE FAIRY' IS SO HARD FOR YOU PEOPLE TO UNDERSTAND?"

"You have a good adventure now, Hero!" Ted saluted. "Salute the nice hero, Charley!"

"SIR!" Charley waved from his unconscious heap.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the second Impenetrable Fortress of Doom, Ganondorf was giving his new hire the run-through on how things worked around his evil tower.

"Now, sir, I have mainly hired you because I am tired of my beautiful daughter Genna leaving her room an utter and complete mess all the time, but I've also heard very good things about you," Ganondorf was glancing over the man's resume as he interrogated him. "Your stealth and assassination skills are legendary, and your skills as a Cajun chef are praised by all your former employers as I see here on your resume. And I did call them all, let me assure you."

The man nodded, but made no sound. He was a tall, gangly but not unhandsome creature with pale skin, silver hair and a tight blue bodysuit decorated with pieces of Sheikah armor. Sheikah are extremely popular in these sorts of fanfics, though the game canon made it very clear that they were a rare race and almost extinct. If the game counted the number of Sheikah that tend to appear as original characters in fanfictions, the issue might instead be how to popularize birth control around those crazy randy shadow folk.

Ganondorf smiled and set down the resume. "Now then. Your main task will be to do all the things around here I am too busy being evil to do, namely cooking and cleaning for my daughter Genna. You will also be responsible for protecting me when I go out to mingle with my public. I will also be sending you on a number of personal missions, which you are to carry out quickly so that you may be home again by six o'clock in time to cook dinner for my daughter. She is allergic to soybeans, so I expect your menu items to reflect this. Are we in agreement?"

The man nodded again.

"You are so quiet. Why don't you ever say anything?" Ganondorf asked suddenly, crossing his arms.

The man shook his head and motioned to his throat.

"Vow of silence or something?" Ganondorf hazarded a guess.

The man shook his head again, more rapidly, then pointed at the resume.

"Let's see, restrictions… oh! Ohohoho, you're a mute!"

The man nodded.

"Well, I guess I won't have to worry about backtalk, will I?" Ganondorf joked insensitively. "Ha ha ha. And what was your name again? Oh. Right, sorry… Ingmar? Your name is Ingmar?"

Ingmar nodded again.

"Hahahah… your name," Ganondorf chuckled. "There's an in-joke nobody's gonna get."

Ingmar shrugged. It wasn't his fault people didn't know an excellent cartoon when they saw it. Stupid network executives… Damn the Man, thought Ingmar.

"Well, Ingmar, your task for today will be to get comfortable around here. Enjoy Genna's company, get to know her, as she'll be begging and pleading for you not to give her vegetables for dinner and I want you to get damn used to telling her 'no', got it? Er… shaking your head rapidly at her, rather," Ganondorf said, recovering smoothly at the last part. "And perhaps later we will talk about your other mission, of course, only if it becomes necessary to head out and murder the Hero of Time like I was planning to. Got it?"

Ingmar nodded and gave a spirited salute.

"Ah, how convenient! Here comes my little poopsie now," Ganondorf smiled beatifically. "Genna, darling! Come say hello to Daddy's new minion slash butler!"

Genna had been on her way past her father's corridor, moodily prodding and poking at the bandage over her bellybutton where the evil doctor had quite a time removing her stubborn piercing. She was not in any mood to speak to her uptight father who really didn't understand her, but she peered shyly into the doorway anyway.

"Come, Genna. This is Ingmar. He is a Sheikah assassin, won the World Hitman Championship twelve consecutive times, has mastered the ancient arts of ninjitsu and stealth, and can make a damn good pot of jambalaya. He is going to be our butler," Ganondorf introduced Ingmar, who gave a polite bow.

Genna froze in the doorway as she laid eyes upon what was definitely the most handsome man she had ever seen (out of Ted and the gangly pubescent idiots at school). He was tall, strong, handsome and had silver hair, not to mention he HAD to be at least twenty-five. _Dreamy._ She made an expression of delight, scampered into the room and clung adoringly to her father's arm, giggling softly.

"Ingmar, this is my beautiful daughter Genna," Ganondorf continued, patting her on the head affectionately.

"Hiiiii Mister Ingmar," Genna giggled, waving at him with a few fingers and batting her eyelashes, heavily made-up with peacock blue mascara.

Ingmar looked over what was definitely the most awkward-looking ten-year-old he'd ever seen (Sheik was no prize as a young man, let him tell you what). She was short, had her baby fat, and was extremely giggly and possibly coming on to him. Not to mention she was ten years old. He glanced uncomfortably back and forth from father to daughter, and finally replied with a few-fingered wave of his own and an awkward smile.

"I'm sure you two will get along splendidly," Ganondorf laughed jovially.

"Oh yes, Daddy, splendidly!" Genna giggled inanely and winked what she assumed was seductively at Ingmar. Ingmar moved a few feet away, still smiling awkwardly and motioning something to Ganondorf with his hands.

"What? Oh, you want to cook for us? That would be lovely. Hop to it then! I'm rather in the mood for a pasta, aren't you, Genna darling?"

"Oh yes, Daddy, pasta!" Genna giggled again, sending upsetting chills down the Sheikah assassin's spine.

Ingmar smiled graciously, bowed again and made a run for it.

"Oh, Daddy, I really liiiiike Ingmar," Genna blushed, fanning her face with her hand. Black nail polish adorned her fingertips. "I like him much better than your other minions."

"That's good, my dear. For some day, all Daddy's minions will be YOUR minions!" Ganondorf chuckled evilly and swept towards the bay window of his loft chambers. "Everything is going perfectly according to plan, Genna my dear. Four out of Six Sages have been disposed of, one is barricaded inside his city like a rat in a trap, and my unholy legions are searching endlessly for the other one. Princess Zelda is out of our hair, and helpless to escape the curse I have placed on her. Now, I bide my time until the Hero of Time also falls to his curse… then I can swoop in and steal their Triforces pieces from them as they lie helplessly dead on the ground!"

"About that, Daddy, I was thinking," Genna said quietly. "Why didn't you take Zelda's Triforce piece when she was here?"

"Because, Genna. I felt I should give the Hero of Time at least a sporting chance," Ganondorf mused.

Genna looked confused. "But that's completely at odds to everything you've said and done so far. I think maybe you just forgot to take—"

"_I gave him a sporting chance, Genna._" Ganondorf seethed, the seethe of an evil genius who has just remembered a major mistake on the author—I mean, on his own part a few chapters too late. "In any case! It shan't matter. Let the princess have her silly Triforce for now. When my curse fully consumes her and Link simultaneously… they will both DIE!"

"What do you mean, Daddy?" Genna asked curiously. "I haven't heard anything about simultaneous curses yet."

"Oh, that's the beauty of it, Genna. I have twisted the curses on Link and Zelda over the course of chapter four so that they are now intertwined. Zelda's curse can only be broken by Link, and Link's curse can only be broken by Zelda. Or they can both break if I am somehow toppled from my reign of darkness and into an oblivion of eternal white light. Like that'll ever happen. It's the most wonderfully evil thing I've ever come up with."

"Ooh, do tell, Daddy," Genna pleaded. "Please, I want to hear!"

"Of course, Genna," Ganondorf grinned and pulled out a helpful diagram. "You see, Genna, Zelda has been cursed and transformed into a duck. Due to the power of her Triforce, I was unable to curse her completely—now, whenever the full moon touches the surface of Lake Hylia, Zelda's very obvious hiding place, she can transform back into a human. But ONLY if she, herself is at the lake! That should keep her from doing anything silly, like running off to warn Link of her plight. Ha ha ha ha… and how often is it a full moon?"

"Every night?" Genna guessed.

Ganondorf chose to ignore this. "Link has been cursed so that the very sound of pop music will send his body into an attack against itself! Spewing, bleeding, rashes, the works. A dreadful curse if ever there was one. This can also be triggered by somebody saying his name. Understand?"

"Vaguely."

"Good enough. Now then… Aside from my glorious defeat—and we all know the odds of THAT happening—there is only one way for Link and Zelda to free themselves from their curses! In order to free Zelda, Link must make a vow of everlasting love to her, and then prove it to the world. However, if Link breaks this vow in any way before the curse is fully broken… SHE WILL DIE!"

"Wow, that sounds almost exactly like the plot of Swan Lake," Genna commented, eating popcorn.

"Does it? Ah, well… In order for Zelda to free Link, she must kiss him just as the sun rises. Do you see where the conflict lies, Genna?" Ganondorf waggled his eyebrows.

"Um… when the sun rises, Zelda will be a duck again?"

"Precisely. Therefore, there is no way for Zelda to break Link's curse as long as she herself is cursed!" Ganondorf howled with maniacal laughter.

"But what if Link breaks Zelda's curse, and then she breaks his? Would that work?" Genna queried.

"That is exactly the course of action they should NOT take. Because, Genna, borrowing on your previous 'entirely-too-evil' idea from chapter two, as Zelda's curse is broken, she will have an unbearable desire to sing a sappy Broadway pop love song. As these overly-dramatic words of soulful devotion burst from her throat in her beautiful princessly voice…"

"Link's HEAD WILL EXPLODE!" Genna gasped excitedly.

"And that's not all. Is it a sign of everlasting love when your head explodes mere seconds after your lover sings overly-dramatic words of soulful devotion?"

"AND ZELDA WILL DIE!" Genna hopped up and down in her seat. "WOW, Daddy, that's the most overly-complicated brilliant plan I've ever HEARD!"

"I know, isn't it?" Ganondorf grinned egotistically. "And that's only if that pathetic Hero of Time makes it far enough to even reach Zelda. Lake Hylia has been sealed off with a great seal so powerful that only ONE force could possibly defeat it! Do you want to take a guess at what that is, Genna?"

"Let's see," Genna thought hard, then read the title of the story she was in. "The Mystical Object of Fate!"

"Precisely," Ganondorf concluded, leaning casually against the wall. "Do you see now, Genna? Our plan… it is absolutely infallible."

"… what?"

"It can't fail."

"Oh. Yes!"

"Now, we sit and wait for news of the Hero of Time's impending death," Ganondorf chuckled. "He is currently on his way up Death Mountain in a feeble attempt to rescue the Sage of Fire, that thickheaded twit Darunia… and when he sees what I have in store for him outside that city, he's going to need a change of underwear. And a casket. BWAHAHAHAHAHHAA!"

Genna joined him in a rousing bout of evil laughter.

Down in the kitchen, Ingmar was wondering exactly what he'd gotten himself into. But boy, was his roux turning out nicely.

* * *

"Hey Puki," Link said enthusiastically.

"Yeah, Smog?"

"How many changes of underwear did you get while you were at the store?"

"Um, three or four?"

"Oh, _good_," Link smiled and crossed his legs uncomfortably, hiding behind a rock column just outside of Goron City and eyeing the bloodthirsty, heart-pounding, stroke-causing horror of a beast that lay in wait for him on the other side and in the next chapter.

"Damn that lazy author!" Puki cursed, as a rock fell out of the sky to knock him unconscious and the end-of-the-chapter came about to change the subject.

* * *

IN THE NEXT CHAPTER OF THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: MYSTICAL OBJECT OF FATE!

Link must once again FIGHT VALIANTLY!

Darunia MAKES AN APPEARANCE! YAY!

Ganondorf CONTINUES TO REMEMBER VITAL PLOT POINTS AND MISTAKES HE MADE TWO OR THREE CHAPTERS AGO, ON ACCIDENT!

Ingmar SAYS NOTHING!

And Genna WRITES A LOVE LETTER TO HIM AND POSTS IT "ANONYMOUSLY" OUTSIDE THE COMPANY BREAK ROOM!

Sounds like you've read it before? **_YOU PROBABLY HAVE!_**


End file.
